Iraq has created a specialized unit within the Popular Mobilization Forces to take control of drones held by armed factions as part of Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi’s plan to bring weapons under state authority, Erem News reported on Friday, citing an Iraqi security source.
The source said three of the five factions covered by the plan had completed agreed handovers, but had not surrendered their entire arsenals. The process instead focused on heavy and specialized weapons and dismantling separate military headquarters.
The Popular Mobilization Forces, which the report said formally operates under Iraq’s commander-in-chief, had received the weapons and military headquarters covered by the agreements. It had also begun integrating faction members and severing their previous political and administrative affiliations, according to the source.
Drones placed under PMF structure
The new drone unit is intended to absorb the factions’ unmanned-aircraft capabilities into official state structures rather than leave them under independently run organizations, the source told Erem News.
But the source stressed that the agreements “do not mean complete disarmament.” Instead, they involve transferring specialized weapons and reorganizing armed formations within the PMF.
Erem News said effective control over those military capabilities would depend on completing the integration process and establishing the chain of command responsible for authorizing their use. The report did not identify the three factions that had completed the handover.
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Government seeks changes to PMF leadership
A political source close to Iraq’s Coordination Framework told Erem News that the government was also seeking amendments to the law governing the PMF, including limiting the term of its chairman to two years and bringing professional officers from the regular military into senior posts.
The proposal would directly affect the position of current PMF chairman Falih al-Fayyadh, according to the report. The source said the plan faced opposition within the Coordination Framework, particularly from Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, which wanted any changes tied to a broader political agreement.
Two factions continue to resist
Erem News said Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba remained opposed to surrendering their weapons, while other factions had accepted the principle of integration into state security institutions.
Zaidi has set June 30, 2027, as the deadline for completing the weapons-control plan and has said decisions on war and peace belong exclusively to Iraq’s constitutional authorities. According to the political source, he has also told Coordination Framework leaders that he intends to continue implementing the plan even if political agreement on some of its details stalls.
The source said Zaidi warned that failure by groups with armed wings to meet agreed commitments could expose Iraq to security, economic and political consequences, including additional sanctions or pressure, while adding that the prime minister still favored negotiations over a direct military confrontation with factions resisting the plan.
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