2026-06-14T10:02:46+00:00

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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