Armed factions set conditions on weapons handover to state
Shafaq News- Baghdad
Armed factions declared their intention to join Iraq's formal state structure and conditioning integration on storing weapons in dedicated separate facilities, kept apart from official security arsenals, a government source told Shafaq News on Sunday.
The factions cited two main reasons: the absence of formal guarantees against future legal prosecution, and the continued presence of US forces in Iraq, whose withdrawal is scheduled for the end of 2026 under a bilateral security agreement.
Legislation governing the factions' integration, financial entitlements, and internal administrative structures is also required before the process can advance, the source said. Draft laws are expected to be prepared for submission to the Council of Ministers before referral to parliament.
Read more: Iraq to place armed factions' weapons under state control: What we know so far
The Coordination Framework, the broad Shiite political alliance that dominates Iraq's parliament, has backed Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to take the necessary steps to safeguard national interests, backing both the weapons monopoly project and severing the PMF from political and partisan affiliations.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Imam Ali have formed committees to oversee the inventory, transfer, and handover of equipment under the supervision of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Saraya al-Salam, the armed wing of Muqtada al-Sadr's Patriotic Shiite Movement, preceded both in announcing its integration into state institutions.
Kataib Hezbollah welcomed centralization of arms under government oversight while signaling it would not disarm, instead proposing to purchase weapons from disarming factions. Harakat al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kaabi described disarmament as a red line that would not be abandoned "even at the cost of lives."
The Coordination Framework remains internally divided over a US proposal linking the expansion of American-led investment projects in Iraq to progress on the weapons file. The process may ultimately hinge on factors beyond Baghdad's control: Mukhtar al-Moussawi, a member of parliament's Foreign Relations Committee from the Shiite Badr bloc, told Shafaq News on Saturday that the fate of Iraq's armed factions is closely tied to any potential US-Iran agreement, warning that current moves are temporary arrangements that could take an entirely different form once the direction of Washington-Tehran relations becomes clear.
Read more: How the US pushed Iraq's armed factions toward disarmament
