Shafaq News- Baghdad (Updated at 3:32)
Wounded members of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and families of personnel killed in service staged a sit-in outside the National Pension Authority in Baghdad on Thursday, demanding overdue benefits and the same pension rights granted to personnel in other security institutions.
The protesters are seeking implementation of Iraq's Military Service and Retirement Law of 2010, which provides additional financial benefits, pension adjustments and end-of-service bonuses.
Maintaining that the provisions apply to personnel in other security institutions, including the Defense and Interior Ministries and the Counter-Terrorism Service, but have not been extended to PMF members, they also called for payment of outstanding differences in end-of-service bonuses.
Tensions emerged during the sit-in, with video footage showing a confrontation between some protesters and security forces. Injuries were reported following the incident.
The PMF Commission said Thursday that the sit-in outside the General Retirement Directorate in Baghdad concerns legal entitlements separate from the wounded-veteran benefits the commission administers.
It explained that its wounded members have received their due entitlements within its authority "almost in full," and these cover salaries and medical treatment inside and outside Iraq, provided through the commission's relevant departments.
"The sit-in relates to demands for the implementation of the Martyrs Foundation Law No. 57, as amended in 2020, and in particular its second clause, which permits combining a retirement pension with an injury salary, on par with counterparts in some security institutions," the Commission added, pointing out that the matter falls outside its legal and administrative authority and within the remit of the Ministry of Finance and the National Retirement Authority.
The dispute comes as the PMF —a state security organization comprising mostly Shiite armed factions— faces a government effort to consolidate weapons under state authority, with September 30 set as a deadline.
The PMF was established in 2014 following a fatwa by Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to combat ISIS. Its forces fought alongside the Iraqi military and the Global Coalition and have since become a major component of Iraq's security landscape, although the role and autonomy of its factions remain politically contentious.
That broader debate has also brought renewed attention to the group's future structure, including how its members will be financed and managed.Earlier this year, an informed source indicated to Shafaq News that the Iraqi government was seeking access to frozen state funds held abroad to help finance the integration of more than 800,000 armed faction members into the PMF and other security institutions.
Read more: Days to disarm Iraq's factions: deadline or negotiable ceiling?