2026-05-08T12:09:04+00:00
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Shafaq News- Najaf
Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Patriotic Shiite Movement
(PSM), called on Friday for all armed factions in Iraq to be integrated into
state-controlled institutions, stressing that his movement would not take part
in the next government.
In a statement, Al-Sadr said he was prepared to place Saraya
al-Salam (Peace Brigades), the PSM’s main armed wing, under the authority of
Iraq’s commander-in-chief if all other factions do the same “as quickly as
possible.”
He further signaled readiness to dissolve Liwa’a al-Yawm
al-Maw’oud (the Promised Day) Brigade, an elite force established in 2008 after
the disbandment of the Mahdi Army, which fought US-led coalition forces in
Iraq. Al-Sadr had already ordered the brigade dissolved in November 2021 and
instructed its members to hand over their weapons to the state. Saraya al-Salam
itself was suspended for six months in December 2025 after al-Sadr said
repeated violations by members had damaged the group’s reputation.
Although he did not identify any faction by name, the
remarks were widely seen as directed at Iran-backed groups operating under the
Islamic Resistance in Iraq umbrella, including Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl
al-Haq, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhadaa, and Harakat al-Nujaba. Many of these
factions are formally part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a
predominantly Shiite umbrella force incorporated into the Iraqi state in 2016,
but they continue to maintain separate command structures and weapons networks
outside direct government control.
Al-Sadr addressed Prime Minister-designate Ali Al-Zaidi
without naming him, saying all armed factions must join either “Jund al-Sha’air
al-Diniyya” (the Soldiers of Religious Rites), which operates under the Hajj
and Umrah Commission linked to the Prime Minister’s Office, or a humanitarian
relief body. Groups that refuse, he warned, would be considered “outside the
law.”
Read more:Twenty-three years on: Iraq got what the 2003 invasion produced
Cabinet Formation
On government formation, Al-Sadr said parties with armed
wings “must be excluded entirely from the incoming cabinet,” rejecting Iraq’s
quota-based political system and calling for a government that answers to the
public rather than political blocs.
“We do not accept the presence of any member of our movement
in the ministerial cabinet, and no minister would represent the PSM.”
He adopted a long-running policy of distancing his movement
from formal political participation. His bloc’s 73 lawmakers resigned from
parliament in June 2022, a move he described at the time as a rejection of
Iraq’s “corrupt political order.” Al-Sadr later boycotted the November 2025
parliamentary elections, warning that Iraq was “living its final breaths.”
The parliament elected in those polls is now overseeing
negotiations to form a new government under Iraq’s muhasasa system, the
post-2003 power-sharing arrangement that divides senior positions among the
country’s main political, ethnic, and sectarian groups.
Prime Minister-designate Al-Zaidi has submitted his
government program to Parliament Speaker Haibet Al-Halbousi ahead of a planned
confidence vote next week, alongside a 14-point ministerial platform outlining
the incoming cabinet’s priorities.
Read more: Ali al-Zaidi named Iraq’s prime minister: Easy nomination, harder road ahead