Shafaq News- Baghdad
Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), one of Iraq's most powerful Iran-aligned armed factions, announced Tuesday the formation of an internal central committee tasked with implementing the group's disengagement from Popular Mobilization Forces structures and transferring its weapons, personnel, and equipment to state authority.
In a statement, the group said that the decision was taken in alignment with the call of the supreme religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and in response to the national position expressed by the Coordination Framework —the Shia political alliance that dominates Iraq's government— and in affirmation of a declaration made by AAH Secretary-General Qais al-Khazali on December 13, 2017, calling for the severance of armed faction ties with the PMF and the monopolization of weapons by the state.
AAH currently operates Brigades 41, 42, and 43 within the PMF —the state-sanctioned paramilitary umbrella formally incorporated into Iraq's security apparatus following its mobilization against the Islamic State in 2014. The movement also maintains a political wing in parliament under the Sadiqoon bloc. The United States has designated AAH a foreign terrorist organization and sanctioned the group over its links to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The central committee will be chaired by Hajj Jawad al-Talibawi and includes three members: Rafid Saleh Ali (known as Hajj Mufid), Abdullah Shakir Kamil (Hajj Abu Dhafir), and Ali Hamza Kadhim (Hajj Abu Baqir al-Jubouri), according to the statement. It is mandated to complete all requirements and procedures for implementing the decision, including a full inventory of personnel, weapons, vehicles, equipment, and logistical assets, and to establish direct coordination with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, PM Ali al-Zadi, in alignment with state security requirements and institutions.
No timeframe for the completion of the disengagement process was specified in the statement.
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The group voiced support for restricting weapons to state control following a decision by Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Patriotic Shiite Movement (PSM), to place Saraya al-Salam, the armed wing of his movement, under state authority.
Earlier, Ashab al-Kahf, also one of Iraq's prominent clandestine armed groups, rejected outright any political calls for factions to surrender their weapons, dismissing arguments invoking the supreme Shia religious authority in support of disarmament as false. Kataib Hezbollah welcomed efforts to centralize arms under government oversight while signaling it would not disarm.
Al-Zaidi has made weapons restriction a central plank of his government program, welcoming al-Sadr's earlier disarmament initiative as a step that would strengthen Iraq's security institutions in performing their constitutional duties, and calling on other armed factions to follow through official state channels, on the principle that “the authority to bear arms and enforce the law belongs exclusively to the state.”
Read more: US vetoes armed faction participation in Iraq’s new government