"Armed assailants this morning shot dead Mohammed al-Shemussi, a captain in the anti-corruption section, in front of his home," said Majed Hamid, a police captain in Amara, the capital of Missan province.

The perpetrators "fled in a taxi", he added.

Shemussi was in charge of applying the mandates of the integrity commission, the federal government's anti-corruption body.

Corruption in Iraq has deprived the public purse of some $450 billion of revenues since 2003, according to a 2019 parliamentary report.

In May, another Iraqi officer specialising in corruption issues was killed in Missan.

He was killed "the day after a police search at the homes of corruption suspects," another police source told AFP.

The home of the Missan tax authority's chief was among those searched, the source said.

Such positions are routinely allocated on the basis of political allegiance in Iraq.

The two killings are part of a wave of attacks against anti-corruption personnel in the rural province, sometimes involving bombs, including one against a judge, the source added.