Is Iraq's arms deadline a genuine push for a state monopoly on force, or a fight al-Zaidi cannot survive? That question sits at the heart of a new report from Global Insights Group (GIG), a London-headquartered intelligence and due diligence firm with deep source networks across MENA. GIG has been tracking the disarmament standoff since al-Zaidi took office, and its analysis goes beyond the headlines to map which factions are actually complying, which aren't, and what the 2021 Kadhimi precedent suggests about what comes next. Below is a shortened version of that analysis, and readers can access the full report here.
Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has staked the credibility of his four-month-old government on a single date: September 30, 2026. That is his deadline for armed groupsโ weapons to fall under state control, timed deliberately to coincide with the end of the International Coalition's mission and the final withdrawal of U.S. forces.
It is a bet that Iraq's own security institutions can fill the vacuum before rival power centres do, made at a moment when Baghdad is still trying to steady itself after a region-wide war and manage the competing pulls of Washington and Tehran, its two rivalling allies.
At the heart of it: a loophole in the PMF
The deadline is not primarily aimed at the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the umbrella organisation tying together non-state armed groups and initially formed to combat the Islamic State in 2014. The PMF is now a legitimate, state-salaried branch of the armed forces under a 2016 law.
The real target is a subset of dual-hatted factions, the so-called "Islamic Resistance in Iraq," that draw state salaries and PMF cover while running independent command structures, chief among them allegiance to Iran's clerical political system, and weapons stockpiles often not registered to the state inventory.
To nudge factions toward handing over their weapons, Al-Zaidi's government has paired the threat of Article 4 Anti-Terrorism Law prosecution with a 35,000-job reintegration plan. This initiative carries the backing of the State Administration Coalition and Supreme Judicial Council chief Faiq Zaidan.
A fractured militia landscape
On the ground, the factions have split three ways. Armed groups like Saraya al-Salam, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Imam Ali have agreed to disband their independent brigades and place their weapons under direct state command.
Kata'ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada have rejected the deadline outright and say they are expanding their arsenals instead to continue resistance against what they call "arrogant powers", rhetoric drawn directly from the IRGC's ideological playbook.
A third bloc, aligned with Nouri al-Maliki and Hadi al-Amiri, is pushing to postpone enforcement until after the U.S. withdrawal is complete, wary of triggering an intra-Shia rupture.
Two recent flashpoints show how quickly this could escalate: a Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) raid that briefly detained a Harakat al-Nujaba intelligence official, and drone strikes on Kurdistan Regional Government officialsโ residences in Erbil.
The Kadhimi shadow
The comparison is Mustafa al-Kadhimi's 2021 confrontation with the same factional ecosystem. His arrest of PMF commander Qasim Muslih had triggered an armed siege of the Green Zone and, months later, a three-drone assassination attempt on his residence.
