The story: A leaked arrest warrant for the son of Kata'ib Hezbollah's leader has seemingly deepened a feud between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi and the Iran-backed armed faction. The document alleges the accused led an armed group “spreading terror,” and surfaced a day after Kata'ib Hezbollah demanded an inquiry into the wealth of the premier's circle. The widening dispute suggests that the contest over disarmament is now being fought over money as much as arms.

The coverage: The warrant began circulating online on Nov. 8. Dubai-based Al Arabiya reported that it was dated July 5 and named Al-Hussein Al-Hamidawi, a man born in 1994 who lives in Baghdad. The channel's sources identified him as the son of Kata'ib Hezbollah Secretary-General Ahmad (Abu Hussein) Al-Hamidawi.

  • A judicial source told the Qatari-linked Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the evidence included confessions and video clips, and that the group "is not officially linked to Kata'ib Hezbollah." Two days later, a separate source told Al Jazeera that the son "has not been arrested so far."

  • The warrant landed in a debate already under way over the faction's business interests. On Nov. 5, TV presenter Marwa Al-Hashem shared commentator Salam Adel's video on the Hamidawi family's businesses. Her post drew more than 114,000 views.

Kata’ib Hezbollah’s supporters answered on Nov. 8 with the Twitter/X hashtag "Hamidawi is a man of the nation."

  • An essay posted the same day on Sabereen News, a Telegram channel widely perceived as supportive of Iran-backed armed groups, argued that owning private companies would be "a legitimate right in principle" for the faction.

On Nov. 9, Al Arabiya and Sky News Arabia, an outlet based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), published a purported leak of a "top secret" intelligence report that tracked oil tankers leaving Jurf Al-Sakhar for Baghdad.

  • The town, also known as Jurf Al-Nasr, lies 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Baghdad. It is a Kata'ib Hezbollah stronghold where the faction is stationed as several brigades of the state-backed Popular Mobilization Units.

While the purported report does not name the faction, Sky News Arabia cited a "private source" the same day as saying Kata'ib Hezbollah was involved in tapping the area's oil pipelines.

  • Ali Farhan, a talk-show host on Fallujah TV, asked whether thousands of displaced families are kept from Jurf Al-Sakhar "so the factions that control it can smuggle oil at their leisure." His post drew nearly 29,000 views.

Hussein Al-Kanani, who heads the Al-Hadaf Center for Studies and has voiced support for the armed factions, dismissed the report on Al-Rasheed TV the same day.

  • Speaking to the channel's presenter Yasser Amer, he asked why the army had not stopped a single tanker if the group were behind the smuggling.

Others read it as an indictment of the state.

  • On Nov. 9, Iraqi political researcher Yahya Al-Kubaisi called the town's apparent role as a "station" for stealing crude oil "a scandal for the Iraqi state with all its authorities and institutions." Kubaisi argued that the town's role proved the state's "collusion with the militias" that hold Jurf Al-Sakhar.

  • Citing the purported report, journalist Falah Al-Mashal wrote that armed factions exploiting the town's closure had been stealing oil from the main pipeline since 2021 and had earned revenues "exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars."

The context/analysis: The feud turned public on Nov. 7, when Kata'ib Hezbollah security official Abu Mujahid Al-Assaf demanded that the Federal Commission of Integrity investigate a "financial empire" of nearly 21T IQD (13.8B USD).

  • The statement named Hassan Al-Zaidi, the prime minister's brother, and offered no documents. Assaf also accused the premier of inciting earlier attacks on the Khor Mor gas field in Iraqi Kurdistan "in order to blackmail the Emirati company."

  • Saud Al-Saadi, head of the Kata'ib Hezbollah-aligned Hoquq bloc in the federal parliament, put written questions to Zaidi on Nov. 8 asking whether the prime minister's own wealth reached 21T IQD.

  • Late on Nov. 8, a drone struck the field, which is run by the UAE's Dana Gas and has been hit more than a dozen times since 2022. Production was suspended the next day, and Zaidi ordered a joint inquiry with the authorities in the Kurdistan region. No group has claimed the attack.

The government has moved against armed groups' business interests. Zaidi ordered three contracts at Mosul International Airport canceled over their links to the factions, Iraq's Shafaq News reported on Nov. 8.

  • Baghdad-based 964 media said a day earlier that the prime minister is weighing a restructuring of the Military Industrialization Authority, the state's arms maker, after Washington passed him a file on the factions' influence there. Assaf's Nov. 7 statement denied any link between his faction and the authority.


At a meeting of the ruling Shiite Coordination Framework, Zaidi said members of the factions would be arrested if they joined any war alongside Iran, the leftist newspaper Al-Mada reported on Nov. 9, citing unnamed sources.

  • At the same meeting, Humam Hamoudi, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, reportedly warned that such a course could bring down "the government and the Coordination Framework together."

  • Shafaq reported on Nov. 8 that Hamoudi and Ammar Al-Hakim, head of the Hikmah Movement, are mediating between Zaidi and Kata'ib Hezbollah with the backing of the whole Framework.

The future: Whether the warrant is executed will show how far the government is prepared to go. "If they want, let them go and carry out arrests," Kanani said in his Nov. 9 interview.

  • The judicial source told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that charges against other prominent figures in the armed factions "may be revealed later."

  • Speaking to Iraqi news site Ultra Iraq on Nov. 10, Ali Al-Fatlawi, a senior figure in the Ansar Allah Al-Awfiya faction, said Coordination Framework chiefs would not allow further escalation. Fatlawi also accused someone inside the prime minister's office of leaking documents to discredit Kata'ib Hezbollah.

The confrontation also weighs on the disarmament track. Kata'ib Hezbollah is among the factions that refuse to hand over their weapons, despite the government's June 2027 deadline.

  • A source told Shafaq on Nov. 8 that members of the Coordination Framework's negotiating committee, including Badr Organization leader Hadi Al-Ameri, have objected to Zaidi meeting the commanders of holdout factions on his own.

  • Former diplomat Ghazi Faisal told Ultra Iraq on Nov. 10 that the dispute is "a real test" of whether the political system can restore the state's authority.

  • Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Iraq, condemned the Khor Mor attack on Nov. 9 and said Washington backs Zaidi and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) "in finding those responsible and holding them to account."