Shafaq News- Baghdad
Harakat Al-Nujaba reaffirmed its rejection to proposals tointegrate the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) into Iraq’s formal securitystructure, Hussein al-Saeedi, deputy head of the movement’s executive council, statedon Friday, describing the initiative as an American project.
that the group’s weapons are “non-negotiable.”
In an address during a tribal gathering in Basra titled“Iraq’s Tribes Support the People of Principle”, Al-Saeedi said the “weapons ofthe resistance are a trust, historical, non-negotiable, and religiousresponsibility to protect the land and holy sites,” adding that disarming the “resistance”would leave society without protection amid ongoing threats.
“ The Islamic resistance supports the peaceful transfer ofpower despite not holding political representation in current or previousgovernments,” he stressed, referring to discussions surrounding a reported planto merge the PMF, Federal Police, and Rapid Response Forces into what hedescribed as a Federal Security Ministry.
“The project to merge the PMF is ineffective and impossibleto implement,” he said, warning that those insisting on pursuing it “will pay apolitical and popular price.”
He also argued that the PMF, Federal Police, and RapidResponse Forces derived their strength from remaining independent of what hecalled “American dominance,” noting that efforts to dissolve the PMF’s ideologicalidentity were “completely rejected.”
The remarks come following a renewed debate over armscontrol and the future of armed factions in Iraq following the approval ofPrime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi’s government program by parliament earlier thismonth. The program included a pledge to restrict weapons exclusively to stateinstitutions.
Harakat al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kaabi recentlyrejected US calls to disarm Iraqi armed factions, calling this a “red line” that would not be abandoned “evenat the cost of lives.”
Former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Aal-Sudani had alsoissued directives in April ordering tighter state control over weapons andimposing stricter measures against armed groups operating outside the law.
Founded in 2013 by Akram Al-Kaabi after splitting from Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, Al-Nujaba operates under the PMF umbrella and was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 2019. Unlike several Iran-aligned factions affiliated with the Shiite Coordination Framework (CF), Al-Nujaba does not hold parliamentary seats and is not formally part of the alliance, which controls around 180 seats in Iraq's 329-member parliament.
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