The Iraqi government has reached a two-stage agreement with armed factions aligned with Tehran to regulate their weapons and gradually hand some heavier weapons to Baghdad over the next nine months, according to four Iraqi government sources who spoke to MBN, although it would miss a previously set Sept. 30 deadline.
Sources close to Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said the first phase of the agreement would start Oct. 1 and run through Jan. 1, 2027.
Under this first phase, according to the sources, the factions would stop issuing statements and refrain from using Iraqi territory for any military activities.
The second phase would run through June 2027 and involve the gradual handover of the factions’ strategic weapons, which include ballistic missiles, rockets, and one-way attack drones, as well as the integration into the Popular Mobilization Forces of brigades belonging to factions that are not already part of the PMF. Most of those factions are on the U.S. terrorism list The PMF is a state-funded umbrella of mostly Shiite armed groups that is formally part of Iraq’s armed forces. In practice, its most powerful factions operate mostly outside Baghdad’s military chain of command and are often allied with Iran.
According to the sources, Zaidi presented the agreement to the U.S. government during an official visit that began Sunday evening. He is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the armed factions, according to the same sources, and is also expected to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Since taking office in May with U.S. backing, Zaidi has pledged to place the factions’ weapons under state control. In June, Washington asked the Iraqi government to establish a clear timetable for regulating the factions’ weapons and dismantling armed groups that operate outside Baghdad’s control.
The Iraqi government set Sept. 30 as the deadline for the factions to hand over their weapons, coinciding with the completion of the U.S.-led international coalition’s mission against the Islamic State. The coalition—Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve—launched in 2014 and eventually included more than 30 countries.
But Iraqi officials and political sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations between the government and the factions told MBN last week that the Iraqi government viewed Sept. 30 as the beginning of a process to regulate the factions’ weapons rather than as a deadline for bringing them under state control, a retreat from its previous position.
The shift in the government’s approach is a setback for Zaidi. For weeks, he had described the deadline as “final and non-negotiable,” linking it to Iraq’s transition to a “new phase” once Operation Inherent Resolve’s mission ends at the end of the month.
But a senior figure in the Coordination Framework, the dominant Shiite political coalition that nominated Zaidi for the prime minister position, on Sept. 16 told MBN that Zaidi faced “significant” pressure from the factions, prompting the government to adopt a more lenient approach. Sept. 30 would now be considered the “beginning of bringing weapons under state control or regulating them,” the source said, without a commitment to a timetable for completing the process.
Several of the Framework’s member parties have ties to Iranian-backed armed factions.
Ihsan al-Shammari, head of the Iraqi Center for Political Thinking, told MBN that by agreeing to regulation, the factions see a “gateway to gaining more time” during the initial phase extending through June 2027. Accepting the principle of regulation allows them to present themselves as participants in the government’s efforts, he added.
Neither the U.S. State Department nor the White House responded to MBN’s questions about the Iraqi government possibly missing the Sept. 30 deadline, or whether Baghdad would face any consequences over delays in reining in the armed factions.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
