Iraq’s Al-Nujaba challenges government disarmament plan

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Calls for a “monopoly of arms by the state” are pressure on resistance groups and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed faction, said on Friday, reiterating its rejection of such proposals.

During a ceremony in Najaf, Sheikh Nazem al-Saadi noted that any discussion on regulating weapons in Iraq should apply a single standard across all actors without exception, stressing that selective enforcement would deepen existing tensions.

Warning that pressure to limit arms could extend beyond non-state groups and eventually reach Iraq’s official security institutions, he raised concerns over the political role of the PMF, underlining that the core issue is not in its existence or weaponry, but the prospect of integration into political quota systems in a way that could reshape its institutional role.

The statement comes two days after Akram al-Kaabi, the faction’s Secretary-General, dismissed the disarmament process, distancing the group from a broader initiative under which several armed factions have begun steps toward transferring weapons and integrating members into state institutions.

Earlier this week, Iraqi security officials outlined the first practical steps toward integrating armed factions into the state's security framework, beginning with the transfer of facilities and weapons belonging to Saraya al-Salam of Iraq’s Patriotic Shiite Movement (PSM).

The move is part of a broader government drive to consolidate weapons under state authority, backed by the ruling Shiite Coordination Framework (CF), which recently endorsed Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's plans to restructure relations between armed groups and the state.

Both Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Imam Ali have previously introduced measures aimed at reorganizing their forces and aligning them with the government's weapons-control initiative. Kataib Hezbollah and Ashab al-Kahf, however, have rejected any calls for disengagement.

Read more: How the US pushed Iraq's armed factions toward disarmament, and who is still pushing back