Shafaq News – Baghdad

The Iraqi Ministry of Communications (MoC) said on Saturday that it did not attend the session of Iraq’s Committee for Freezing Terrorist Funds in which a decision was made to freeze the assets of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansarallah (Houthis).

In a statement, the ministry noted that its representative on the committee “was not present at the last session, whose outcomes were published in the Official Gazette,” explaining that the representative “was on leave at the time and did not participate in voting on any of the decisions issued in that session.”

The statement did not specify which government bodies were present.

Iraq’s Committee for Freezing Terrorist Funds had included Hezbollah and the Houthis under its sanctions framework, applying a set of United Nations Security Council resolutions related to counterterrorism and terrorist financing. The listings appeared in Issue No. 4848 of the Official Gazette (Al-Waqae’e), dated 17 November 2025.

Authorities moved swiftly to limit the practical impact of the decision. A clarification and accompanying document from the Central Bank of Iraq said Baghdad’s approval applied only to entities and individuals affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an “urgent” investigation into how the listings were issued, a move that followed political debate, particularly among factions aligned with what is commonly referred to as the “Axis of Resistance.”

Legal experts told Shafaq News that correcting a decision published in the Official Gazette is procedurally permissible.

Read more: Iraq’s backtrack on Hezbollah–Houthi listing exposes a high-stakes regional tightrope