{"id":256601,"date":"2026-08-19T19:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256601\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T19:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:24:08","slug":"irans-plan-to-weaken-kurdish-iraq-mantain-militias-in-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256601\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s plan to weaken Kurdish Iraq, mantain militias in country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iraq<\/a> is seeking to disarm Iranian-backed militias. Under Iraq\u2019s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, Baghdad says it wants the arms of the militias to be under state control. The militias know Baghdad has US backing to pressure the groups.<\/p>\n

However, the groups will do everything possible to avoid being disarmed. Now the groups are setting their sights on the Kurdistan Region<\/a> of northern Iraq to try to weaken the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One method is claiming their weapons are \u201calready\u201d under state control. The militias are part of the state-backed Popular Mobilization Forces. Therefore, the groups claim that, as the PMF, they are already an official paramilitary. They claim they are essentially a national guard and therefore they don\u2019t need to hand over weapons because the weapons are already controlled.<\/p>\n

Another ploy the groups are using is to try to make it so the effort to disarm militias will also apply to the Kurdish Peshmerga. The autonomous Kurdistan Region has its own military, called the Peshmerga. The KRG\u2019s role in Iraq is spelled out in the constitution of Iraq that was passed after the US 2003 invasion.<\/p>\n

As such, the Peshmerga are an official force. Over the years, there have been attempts to reform the Peshmerga so that they are no longer affiliated with the two Kurdish political parties, the KDP and PUK. In the past, the Peshmerga 70th Division and 80th Division were essentially arms of the PUK and KDP, respectively.<\/p>\n

The powerful Iranian-backed militia Kata’ib Hezbollah has now demanded that the Peshmerga also be disarmed. This is meant to throw a wrench into efforts to disarm them and other groups. The militia is also warning the prime minister against \u201cprovocative and irresponsible\u201d actions, according to a report at Rudaw, a Kurdish media outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur patience is beginning to run out regarding the provocative and irresponsible actions of the prime minister,\u201d Kata’ib Hezbollah\u2019s Abu Mujahid al-Assaf said. This may constitute a threat to the prime minister\u2019s life. Rudaw noted that \u201cAssaf also accused Zaidi of failing to understand the \u2018complex circumstances\u2019 facing Iraq and the wider region amid warnings to \u2018avoid being dragged into what pleases the enemies.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The report added that \u201cthe statement followed the arrest of Abbas Hussein al-Yaqubi, a senior PMF commander affiliated with Harakat al-Nujaba, by an Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service unit in Dhi Qar province on Monday. The PMF later confirmed that Yaqubi had been handed over to its security directorate for legal proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of anti-Kurdish rhetoric is aimed at dividing Iraqis so that some Iraqi Shi\u2019ites, who back the militias, will argue that they deserve the same rights as Kurds. They will argue that their militias are similar to the Peshmerga.<\/p>\n

The real goal here is that Iran will use the militias to do whatever is necessary to preserve its role in Iraq<\/a>. Iran has sought to weaken the Kurdistan Regional Government<\/a> in the past.<\/p>\n

Recently, it attacked the office of KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. Using Kata’ib Hezbollah to demand that the Peshmerga be weakened is part of the larger Iranian agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iraq is seeking to disarm Iranian-backed militias. Under Iraq\u2019s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, Baghdad says it wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[34,6957,94,6958,13880],"class_list":["post-256601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-iran","tag-iran-iraq","tag-iraq","tag-militia","tag-proxy-relationship"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117123813415937440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}