Shafaq News- Baghdad

The military chief of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abdul Aziz al-Mohammadawi, widely known as Abu Fadak, on Wednesday rejected calls for Iran-aligned armed factions to hand their weapons over to the Iraqi state.

In a video circulated on social media, al-Mohammadawi dismissed a question from a bystander about surrendering the factions' weapons, replying, "Who is going to take the weapons?"

The PMF, a state security organization comprising dozens of armed factions, was formally incorporated into Iraq's security apparatus in 2016. While many of its units operate under the command of the Iraqi government, several powerful Iran-aligned factions within the PMF maintain independent military structures and have resisted efforts to place all weapons under exclusive state control.

Earlier today, joint US-Saudi airstrikes targeted PMF facilities in eastern Iraq, escalating tensions between Baghdad's Iran-aligned armed groups and Washington. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said US and Saudi warplanes had carried out precision strikes on weapons depots and logistics facilities belonging to Iran-backed groups that it blamed for recent attacks.

The strikes killed at least 20 PMF members and wounded 32 others. Iran's Mehr news agency separately reported that four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were also killed.

Iraq’s disarmament plan coincides with the scheduled end of the Global Coalition's mission on September 30. Several Iran-aligned factions have rejected surrendering their weapons, including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, while US forces remain in Iraq, while others have begun placing their arsenals under state authority.

Read more: Iraq's September deadline undercuts armed factions' case for weapons