Exclusive: Baghdad, Factions near Compromise on Weapons Handover
Leaders in Baghdad are discussing a plan to disarm Iranian-aligned militias without giving the Iraqi government full control of their weapons, sources familiar with the matter told MBN.
The goal of the talks is to find a way forward on an issue that threatens to split key constituencies in Iraq — allowing the government to demonstrate progress on the issue while giving the armed factions a way to avoid appearing to have surrendered their weapons under pressure, including from the United States.
The Iraqi government had given the factions until Sept. 30 to hand over their arms. But a member of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s team told MBN that “the Sept. 30 deadline will not remain fixed. Proposals to postpone it are close to becoming a reality.”
The director of the office of a Coordination Framework leader told MBN that an understanding had been reached between the framework’s political forces and Zaidi under which the factions would release their weapons to the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, which would serve as the official body responsible for registering and storing them.
The PMF is a collection of Iraqi militias created to fight ISIS in 2014. It serves as an auxiliary to Iraqi armed forces and includes groups close to Iran as well as factions with opposing political views.
The Iraqi government has not officially announced any intention to postpone the deadline. The international coalition’s mission in Iraq is also scheduled to end on Sept. 30.
During an Aug. 19 visit to Baghdad, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that the factions should either be allowed to retain their weapons or deposit them with the PMF in case of an emergency, rather than hand them over to the government.
According to three sources, Ghalibaf said he believed the Iraqi government was controlled by Washington.
The United States is pressing the Iraqis to bring Iran-aligned factions’ weapons under state control, a commitment Zaidi made during his meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in July. Some of the armed groups have attacked U.S. installations in Iraq.
Ammar al-Hakim, head of the National State Forces Alliance, told Joshua Harris, the U.S. Embassy chargé d’affaires, during a meeting on Sunday that the weapons should be handed over to the PMF because it is an official government institution, the Iraqi News Agency reported, quoting Hakim’s office. He noted the arms had contributed to that group’s fight against the Islamic State.
On Aug. 8, Hakim said the weapons issue “will be addressed within the framework of the PMF,” warning against what he called “attempts to demonize everything in Iraq” and urging that the factions be viewed as forces that had “provided martyrs in defense of Iraq.”
The Security Media Cell, which coordinates information from Iraq security institutions, said Aug. 18 that the government was not seeking a confrontation with the armed militias or to exclude them from the political process. The goal instead is to establish a stable security system “in which weapons are regulated.”
More Iraqi leaders have begun to use the phrase “regulating weapons” rather than “bringing weapons under state control” to discuss the issue of disarmament.
The search for a compromise has become more urgent as the deadline approaches and tensions rise. Iraqi security sources told MBN that some factions had threatened to target the government if it insisted on treating the issue as one involving “terrorists’ weapons, not resistance weapons.”
Esmail Qaani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, urged Iraqi militia leaders during a visit to Baghdad earlier this month to not hand over their weapons, a source who attended the meeting told MBN.
Ahmed Adnan, a leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the militias in question, said in a statement that the issue was not about handing over weapons but transferring the authority to order their use to the commander in chief of the armed forces, who is the prime minister. Adnan said the weapons would remain within PMF formations, while some factions would end their political and ideological affiliations.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Imam Ali, both designated terrorist organizations by Washington, had announced that they were beginning procedures to bring their weapons under state control, following a similar move by Saraya al-Salam.
Zaidi said during a panel discussion at the Eighth Baghdad Dialogue conference on Friday that all political forces fully agreed on moving ahead with bringing weapons under state control and that work was underway on mechanisms for handing them over.
“There are no intentions or possibilities of a military confrontation, and we will not allow Iraq’s enemies to exploit any opportunity,” he said.
He said the presence of weapons outside state control would create an environment that discourages investment.
Zaidi said some factions had already complied with the disarmament order, severed their affiliations and joined the PMF, while the government was continuing talks with other factions. He said the process was proceeding without resorting to military confrontation.
Ghalibaf, meanwhile, said publicly after his meetings that Iran would support decisions taken by Iraq’s political forces and components within the framework of the constitution, and that Tehran does not interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs.
Kataib Hezbollah, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Harakat al-Nujaba continue to retain their weapons. Washington designates all three as terrorist organizations.
Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, secretary-general of Kataib Hezbollah, said the U.S.-Saudi strikes that targeted the PMF at the end of July were grounds for holding on to weapons, rather than giving them up.