Shafaq News- Baghdad

The high-level committee, established by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command and tasked with investigating the smuggling of an arms shipment across Iraq's border with Syria, officially began its work Friday, a senior security source told Shafaq News.

The inquiry extends beyond the border crossing's administration and civil offices there to a wide range of security units and military checkpoints responsible for securing the overland routes and areas the tanker passed through before reaching the border, the source said.

The committee is reviewing duty logs and inspection records for checkpoints along that route. It is to submit its findings to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces within 48 hours for ratification.

On Friday, the Syrian authorities said they seized a shipment of weapons, missiles, and drones that crossed from Iraq into Syria hidden inside an oil tanker declared as heavy fuel oil before Syrian authorities and said the cargo was bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

A senior Iraqi security source told Shafaq News the tanker left Iraqi territory by land about nine days earlier, its opening closed and fully sealed by customs, with instructions not to open it before reaching its final destination, ostensibly to avoid having the shipment rejected by the receiving state.

The tanker crossed the border through the al-Tanf crossing, according to the source, “exploiting the absence of specialized sonar equipment capable of detecting weapons or prohibited materials inside liquid tankers at the crossing.” The weapons also evaded K9 police dogs because they had been wrapped in insulating bags and submerged in dense heavy fuel oil to make detection more difficult.

The tanker cleared the Iraqi side but was found, upon inspection on the Syrian side, to be loaded with large quantities of weapons, missiles, and drones concealed “professionally to disguise the cargo and evade monitoring,” according to the account.

The source described the operation as a "serious security breach" requiring an urgent investigation to determine the circumstances of the incident, hold negligent parties accountable, and strengthen inspection and monitoring at border crossings, given the risk to the country's security and the reputation of its crossings.

Hezbollah dismissed the accusations that it maintains any activity inside Syrian territory, calling them fabricated accounts with no basis in fact. “The accusations are intended to damage Hezbollah and serve the Zionist-American project in the region,” the group's media relations office said, without referring to any specific incident.

Read more: Exclusive: How did arms from Iraq reach Syria for Hezbollah?