Shafaq News – Baghdad
Iraq’s top Shiite religious authority in Najaf (Marja’ia) rejects any move to alter the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) file before a new government is formed, a senior figure in the Coordination Framework (CF) told Shafaq News on Monday.
Abdulrahman al-Jazairi, a leader within the Framework, said he personally contacted one of the Najaf religious authority’s representatives to clarify the position on the PMF, who told him that “no decision affecting the PMF can be taken before the formation of the next government.”
Al-Jazairi said that factions refusing to hand over their weapons—referring to Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba—have submitted a list of six demands to Coordination Framework leaders in exchange for disarmament, explaining that the demands include guarantees that “any weapons handover would be conducted exclusively through state institutions, specifically the Ministries of Interior and Defense, as well as assurances that faction headquarters would not be targeted.”
According to al-Jazairi, Coordination Framework leaders have agreed that decisions taken by the next prime minister should not extend to the PMF file, signaling an effort to separate government policy decisions from the force’s status.
Earlier, a CF source revealed to Shafaq News that the bloc had asked some international mediators to provide concrete guarantees that armed factions would not be targeted during any process of dissolution or integration into state security institutions. Those guarantees include non-targeting of faction leaders, no interference with their financial structures, and leaving the process of dissolution and integration open-ended without a fixed timeline.