Iraq's national security adviser announces arrests of people linked to Ukrainian intelligence cells

Iraq's national security adviser announced in the early hours of Tuesday, 28 July 2026 (6 Mordad 1405), the arrest of individuals who he said had been in contact with Ukrainian intelligence cells and had been carrying out attacks against Iraqi government facilities.

The announcement comes as the file on attacks against infrastructure in Iraq has taken on new dimensions, from an explosion at a gas field in northern Iraq to the dispute over the origin of the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities, which Riyadh attributed to Iran-backed groups in Iraq and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied. The Kremlin had earlier described a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea as "aggressive".

Iraq is the leading destination for Iran's non-oil exports and the setting for a significant share of Iranian cross-border trade and technical and engineering services. The security of Iraqi facilities and routes therefore matters for the flow of trade between the two countries and for the dinar market along Iran's western borders.