The chairman of the Iraqi parliament’s integrity committee, Ziad al-Janabi, and his deputy, Alia Nassif, are among 47 lawmakers and senior officials arrested for corruption at dawn on Sunday, June 28, in Baghdad and four provinces. The two legislators led the body responsible for policing graft in the Iraqi state. They stand accused, along with ten other members of parliament, of illicit enrichment and the squandering of public funds, according to the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Abrams tanks escorted counter-terrorism and army units during the raids, Al Jazeera reported. Every entrance to the Green Zone — the fortified district that houses the government, parliament and foreign embassies — was sealed before sunrise. Baghdad’s international airport tightened passenger checks to keep wanted men from leaving the country, airport employees told the network. The Counter-Terrorism Service was created to fight al-Qaeda, then the Islamic State group.
The operation has no precedent, according to political analyst Hamza Mustafa. Its consequences will be heavy, he said, because it amounts to a “coup” against a political system built on “collusion and mutual understandings”, Mustafa told Al Jazeera on 28 June 2026.
The wave of arrests rests on the confessions of Adnan al-Jumaili, a deputy oil minister known in the Iraqi press as the “Oil Whale”. He was arrested on May 30 in Salahuddin province, shortly after losing his post as director general of the North Refineries Company. Agents found roughly 11 million US dollars in his possession, according to Al Jazeera. The investigation went on to seize hundreds of billions of dinars — the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars — along with buried bundles of cash, luxury properties and gold, according to Kurdistan24.
A 200-million-dollar offer
In early June, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi revealed that a senior oil ministry official had offered him 200 million dollars, through an intermediary, to close the file, according to the Emirati daily Al Khaleej of 1 June 2026. The prime minister declined. The interrogations continued. Four weeks later, the Counter-Terrorism Service was knocking on doors in the Green Zone.
Investigators accuse a group of legislators of exploiting state resources for electioneering and collecting commissions on government contracts, according to INA. Parliament Speaker Haibat al-Halbousi lifted the immunity of the targeted MPs during the legislative recess. Those detained also include Muthanna al-Samarrai, leader of the Sunni Azm Alliance, a former adviser to ex-prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and a second senior oil ministry official.
Ziad al-Janabi was not in Baghdad. The integrity committee chairman was arrested in Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region, more than 300 kilometres from the capital, and handed over to federal authorities the same day, according to INA as cited by Kurdistan24.
“Like dominoes”
If the campaign keeps its pace, the corruption networks built over the past two decades will collapse “like dominoes”, said Talib al-Ahmad, a political researcher, according to Al Jazeera published on 29 June 2026. He noted that the prosecutions have so far shown no “red lines”.
MP Basem al-Gharabi cautioned, in the same report, that the campaign’s success will be measured not by the number of arrests but by whether it proceeds without selectivity, regardless of party or position. Government spokesman Haidar al-Aboudi confirmed to Al Jazeera that the arrests are continuing.
Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman with no political experience, has led the government for less than two months. Every one of his predecessors since 2003 promised to fight corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq 136th out of 182 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index, according to Middle East Eye. Al-Zaidi is expected in Washington in mid-July to discuss investment, notably in the oil sector.
The arrest of a watchdog’s leadership for the conduct it was created to police follows by two weeks a similar case in Indonesia, where five state auditors were bribed to certify the finances they were auditing.
The Federal Commission of Integrity, the body that coordinated the arrest warrants, has pledged full transparency throughout the investigation, according to a statement cited by Kurdistan24 on 28 June 2026.
