Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has proposed a plan to the United States that would link the expansion of US-led service and investment projects in Iraq to efforts to restrict weapons to state control and facilitate the disarmament of armed factions, a political source told Shafaq News on Tuesday.

The proposal aims to shift the weapons issue from a direct security challenge into a broader political and economic settlement by providing practical alternatives for faction members, particularly through employment opportunities and productive development projects.

"Al-Zaidi believes that the involvement of American companies in service and investment sectors could provide the government with economic and political support for implementing a gradual disarmament plan," the source said, adding that It would also seek to create jobs for young Iraqis, integrate some faction members into the labor market, and reduce their reliance on armed formations operating outside state institutions.

Earlier in the day, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), one of Iraq's most powerful Iran-aligned armed factions, announced 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.

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: Iraq’s armed factions and the disarmament debate: Why unity masks deep divisions