Following the arrest of one of the Iranian regime’s proxy operatives in Iraq, who had also been sanctioned by the United States, a large amount of cash was discovered and confiscated from his house. He was involved in money laundering and facilitating the smuggling of the Iranian regime’s sanctioned oil.

Proxy groups were one of the lines and bastions that the Iranian regime had created over the past decades to protect itself. Former regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei, through Qasem Soleimani, created, armed, and supplied proxy group allies in various countries over several decades.

Iraq Sets September 30 as Deadline for Disarmament of Iranian Regime-Backed Militia Groups

Khamenei, whose corpse-carrying carnival is being witnessed in Iranian cities these days, had repeatedly and openly declared that if the regime does not set its defenses in countries like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, and Lebanon, it would have to fight the enemy in the streets of Iranian cities.

This slogan might have been useful for the Iranian regime until before 2017, but when the first widespread protests swept the streets of Iran and the Iranian people chanted “Our enemy is right here, they lie that it’s America,” it turned into a useless tool.

It took a few years for the ineffectiveness of this strategy and tactic to prove itself more prominently. The internal protests of 2019 and 2022 were part of this process.

But the turning point began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the Iranian Resistance Movement, which seeks regime change in Iran, had been declaring to the international community for decades that “the head of the snake is in Tehran,” but the West, which was in a sweet sleep and a mirage of finding moderates and moderation in Iran, closed its eyes to this reality. Until the danger did not just reach their ears, but a heavy blow struck their heads.

The Iranian Regime’s Proxy Groups, the Body and Tail of the Snake

This meant that the proxy groups involved in terrorism in Middle Eastern countries were the body and tail of the snake. However, the West, pursuing a policy of appeasement, did not have much interest or function to confront these proxy groups. But when the surprise blow was delivered to one of the West’s allies, after a while, the main issue, namely “the head of the snake is in Tehran,” inevitably came to the West’s table.

Following the October 7 attack, the Iranian regime’s proxy groups received crushing blows one after another. Some like Assad regime in Syria were destroyed, and some like Hamas and Hezbollah received backbreaking blows. The Yemeni Houthis also received effective blows in the meantime.

However, Iraq and the Iranian regime’s proxy groups in this country were on the sidelines of the attacks and blows in this process, just as the Pakistani Zainabiyoun and the Afghan Fatemiyoun were on the sidelines. It can be said that currently, the focus of the West and regional governments is on two countries and the Iranian regime’s proxy groups in them: Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) and other Iranian regime proxy groups in Iraq.

Following the October 7 attack, the Iranian regime’s funding, arming, and manning of its proxy groups in regional countries continued. When the West somewhat blocked the Iranian regime’s overt and cover paths for financing proxy groups, the tactic changed. Gold replaced cash. The examples discovered at Beirut Airport bear witness to this.

Now, new news is arriving from Iraq. After Nouri al-Maliki, the Iranian regime’s operative for the premiership of Iraq, was sidelined due to U.S. opposition, Ali Faleh al-Zaidi took the prime ministerial seat.

Confronting the Iranian Regime’s Operatives and Terror Financiers

Under U.S. pressure, the confrontation against the Iranian regime’s Iraqi proxy groups—which were being attacked during the recent two wars, as well as before and after them—came under pressure. The pressures were of various types: military attacks, disarmament efforts, arrests, preventing the financing of terrorism, sanctions, etc.

On Sunday, June 28, 2026, media reported that the Iraqi Deputy Minister of Oil, Ali Maaraj al-Bahadli, was arrested at his home in the upscale Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad. The charge at that time was not completely clear. However, it had previously been rumored that Maaraj was accused of helping the Iranian regime’s proxy groups in Iraq that were engaged in oil smuggling.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported on July 1, 2026, that the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq announced that in the first stage, 11 million U.S. dollars and 4 billion Iraqi dinars (an amount exceeding 3 million U.S. dollars) were confiscated from Ali Maaraj al-Bahadli.

Images published after his arrest indicated that bags of cash hidden inside the walls of his home were pulled out and confiscated by security forces.

The council also stated that while this amount of money and several properties belonging to Maaraj al-Bahadli have been seized and confiscated, the investigation is in its early stages and will continue.

After the fall of the former Iraqi regime, Maaraj al-Bahadli entered an important sector of the Iraqi oil industry with the help of the Iranian regime, becoming the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Missan Oil Company. His activities were not limited only to the oil industry. He was an individual who, while climbing the steps of his career ladder, also climbed the political ladder with the help of the Iranian regime.

From Climbing Step-by-Step to Free Fall

From 2014, with the support of the “State of Law” coalition, the Iranian regime-backed coalition led by al-Maliki, Maaraj al-Bahadli entered the Iraqi Parliament and reached the position of head of the parliament’s important Oil and Energy Committee. A position that opened his way for financing through the oil industry and for the future plans of the mullahs in Tehran.

He then colluded with another prime minister supported by the Iranian regime, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, and played an important role in building Sudani’s “Construction and Development” coalition. Part of this role included the financing that had accrued to him through the oil industry and its smuggling.

With the support of the Iranian regime and his reciprocal assistance to the Iranian regime-backed proxy groups, Maaraj al-Bahadli climbed the ladder of progress up to the threshold of being nominated for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. But just as a ladder has steps of progress, it may also have steps of descent or fall, at a time when Maaraj al-Bahadli was spending the oil money of his own country, Iraq, on the desires and goals of the Iranian regime.

His fall began when the U.S. Treasury, in May 2026, sanctioned and listed Ali Maaraj al-Bahadli under Executive Order 13902. Al-Bahadli was accused by the United States of being involved in forging certificates of origin for exported oil, blending Iraqi oil with the Iranian regime’s oil and exporting it under the name of Iraqi oil, and assisting in smuggling and facilitating the export of the Iranian regime’s sanctioned oil.

Among other charges brought against Maaraj al-Bahadli is the financial support of certain Iranian regime proxy groups such as “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” and individuals supported by the Iranian regime such as “Salim Ahmad Said.”

Khamenei’s Wandering Corpse, the Hidden Son, and the Fate of Proxy Groups

The arrest of Ali Maaraj al-Bahadli, following the detention of another deputy minister of oil of Iraq, Adnan al-Jumaili—who is also recognized as one of the Iranian regime’s proxy operatives—indicates that confronting the Iranian regime’s Iraqi proxy groups is the capture of another bastion among those bastions that Khamenei saw as a dam blocking his imaginary enemies from reaching Tehran. But now, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who has been appointed as the new supreme leader, out of fear of their real internal enemies, namely the people of Iran, does not even dare to appear over his dam-less, 4-month-old, graveless father’s corpse.

While fear and panic have cast their shadow over the leaders of the Iranian regime in Tehran, and no water is warmed for them from the bastion of their proxy groups, Ali Faleh al-Zaidi, the Prime Minister of Iraq, in another move following the arrest of Ali Maaraj al-Bahadli, drove a nail into the coffin of the Iranian regime. On July 4, 2026, he announced that his government has designated a significant reward for individuals who identify persons involved in corruption through the acquisition of public property via illegal methods.

The experience of more than the past two decades in Iraq has proven that just like in Iran, wherever there has been talk of corruption and embezzlement, the Iranian regime’s proxy groups or its operatives have always been at the front of the line. Now, however, when the issue of confronting corruption and disarming proxy groups in Iraq has intensified, they are trying to project themselves at the back of the line! But this is a futile effort.

Ultimately, Khamenei the father and his proxy groups

Just as Khamenei the father—whom these groups could not fight for and protect in the streets of neighboring countries, and who was killed in the heart of Tehran—now these groups are also being brought to trial in the heart of their own countries.

This is a war that is moving forward in parallel: in Iran between the people of Iran and the Iranian regime, and for the people of regional countries with the proxy groups spawned by the Iranian regime. History has always shown whom victory belongs to.