Iraq can amend terror listings published in Official Gazette, legal experts say
Shafaq News – Baghdad
Legal experts confirmed on Thursday that Iraq can lawfully correct or amend any decision published in the Official Gazette, including the recent listing of Yemen’s Houthis (Ansarallah) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah as terrorist entities, a move made in accordance with binding UN Security Council classifications.
Iraq listed Hezbollah and the Houthis in Issue No. 4848 of the Official Gazette, dated November 17, 2025, as part of its implementation of UN Security Council counterterrorism measures, but the Committee for Freezing Terrorist Funds later admitted the inclusion was a “mistake." A document signed by the Central Bank’s deputy governor requested the removal of the references to Hezbollah and the Houthis, confirming that no asset-freeze orders had been approved.
Read more: Iraq withdraws Hezbollah, Houthis terror designation
Legal expert Ali Al-Tamimi told Shafaq News that Iraq’s “Committee for Freezing Terrorist Funds was formed under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Law No. 39 of 2015, as well as the Terrorist Funds Freezing Regulation No. 6 of 2023,” explaining that its “core responsibilities are to monitor Security Council decisions, particularly those issued by the Sanctions Committee established under UN resolutions from 1999 through 2015, which govern the freezing of assets.”
Addressing the inclusion of the Houthis and Hezbollah, Al-Tamimi said that the committee “relied on Security Council decisions that ordered the freezing of the assets of these entities, and it enforces those decisions as internationally binding.”
“Retracting decisions is possible and legally valid,” he added. “It is published in the Iraqi Official Gazette in accordance with the Law on Publication in the Official Gazette No. 78 of 1977, which authorizes the issuing authority to publish a correction or explanatory note when necessary.”
Speaking to our agency, legal expert Abbas Al-Uqabi clarified that “according to Article 8 of the Iraqi Official Gazette Law [which allows for correcting typographical errors that occur during publication through a formal notice from the issuing authority, and the correction is published in the Official Gazette], if the error occurred inadvertently, it is corrected; and if it came from the Central Bank, it is also corrected by a decision from them.”
“The committee responsible for the listing, through a statement by the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, named Hezbollah and the Houthis without having received official approval to include them,” Al-Uqabi noted.
