Iraq File

The IRGC’s account of destroyed warehouses and dead Americans in northern Iraq is, 48 hours on, a claim rather than a confirmed event — and the parallel claim from the same night has already been contradicted.

Qasim al-Araji says 30 September is the coalition’s departure date, not the date weapons are handed over. The legislation actually moving through the system is a PMF pensions bill, not a disarmament one.

Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada has become the latest Iran-backed group to accept state control of its weapons in principle while attaching preconditions no Iraqi government can meet alone, 28 days before the 30 September deadline.

The PMF chairman told state media on 20 August that legislation on service, retirement and structure would reach parliament within a fortnight. Thursday is the deadline he set himself — and the most concrete test of the disarmament campaign available this week.

The prime minister’s production target, announced on Tuesday, sits against a pipeline moving 170,000 barrels a day against 1.5 million of capacity and monthly revenues that fell from about $6 billion to under $2 billion after February.

With Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s 30 September deadline for confining arms to the state now four weeks away, five armed groups have refused to disarm and are floating a freeze. The mechanism already in use suggests why: weapons can move inside the state without leaving the militias.

CENTCOM confirmed strikes on Iranian rocket launchers at Larak Island; the IRGC claimed retaliation against bases in Jordan and the UAE, one of which Abu Dhabi denies was hit. Iraq’s exports and power grid sit downstream of every round.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has staked his authority on the US-led coalition mission ending on 30 September. Neither Baghdad nor Washington has published how many personnel remain, or what happens at Harir.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces chairman told the state news agency in late August that a new law on service, retirement and structure would reach parliament within a fortnight. That window closes around 3 September.

The Kurdistan Region’s assertion that US support continues comes eight months after American forces left Anbar, leaving a residual presence in a province Baghdad does not fully control.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi won confidence in May with 14 of 23 ministers. Nine seats remain unfilled, and the reported mechanism now holding the bargain together is a freeze on resignations.

Two Council of Ministers decisions posted on the Iraqi prime minister’s website bite this coming Tuesday: a phased lifting of petroleum product subsidies for all sectors, and crude purchases at a 30 percent discount to the lower of the SOMO or budget price. The cabinet imposing them is still nine ministers short.

With Hormuz shut since early March, the Kurdistan pipeline to Turkey is carrying southern Iraqi barrels and SOMO is marketing Kurdish ones. The volume that decides whether that arrangement works has not appeared in public.

The Iraqi prime minister recommitted on 21 August to putting all weapons under state control by 30 September. No cabinet order, legal instrument or payroll arithmetic has been published to carry it out.

Finance Ministry figures for January to June show IQD 54.6 trillion in spending, more than IQD 48.7 trillion of it on wages and pensions, against a deficit above IQD 18.7 trillion. Every other file on this desk runs through that arithmetic.

The National reported on 26 August that the Bundeswehr’s Iraq deployment has concluded while the US-led coalition prepares to leave. What we can verify is the report; the terms of the drawdown are not yet on the record.

The PMF law that Washington’s pressure killed in 2025 is back in circulation in Baghdad. The government re-tabling it was seated in May with 14 of 23 ministries filled.