🔸 Arms deadline in Iraq; what is Qaani looking for in Baghdad?

🔻Report by Sara Majidi

In the run-up to the September 30 (8 Mehr) deadline to place all weapons outside the framework of the Iraqi government under the control of the country’s official institutions, Ismail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has traveled to Baghdad.

A source familiar with the matter told the Kurdistan24 website that Qaani is heading a senior military and security delegation and has, so far, met with figures such as Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organization.

It has been reported that his negotiations focus on two main tracks: “the fate of the weapons of Iraqi armed groups” and “arrangements related to the export of Iraq’s oil through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The trip has taken place, without prior announcement, at one of the politically sensitive periods in Iraq, when the government is trying to settle the status of powerful armed groups and, at the same time, prevent tensions in the region from spilling over into Iraqi territory.

This issue has now become one of Baghdad’s most difficult political and security challenges, and recently Haider al-Abadi, the spokesperson of the Iraqi government, said that “no institution or organization should hold control of weapons outside the framework of the government,” and called for the return of active armed groups operating outside official security institutions to come under the umbrella of the government’s authority.

However, Iraqi armed groups continue to disagree over how to surrender their arsenals or formalize them. Some groups have indicated their willingness to be placed within the official framework of the state, but other groups, including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, condition any “disarmament” on the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.

This comes as the State Administration Coalition had previously warned that “armed activity outside state institutions after this deadline may be considered terrorism.”

Qaani’s visit, now as the deadline approaches and after tensions intensified between Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iranian-allied armed groups, has added further to its importance.

But the reaction of Iraqi armed groups to this process cannot be explained solely from the angle of their relationship with Tehran or the model of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Mehriдад Farhmand, a Middle East affairs analyst, says in an interview with Deutsche Welle Persian, pointing to differences between Iraqi armed groups and Lebanon’s Hezbollah: “The issue of disarmament in Iraq is far more complicated than Hezbollah.”

Read the full text of the report on the Deutsche Welle Persian website.