Iraq File

An explosion at a Popular Mobilization Forces site on Saturday killed one fighter and wounded four, according to two anonymous sources; the PMF’s own statement records five injured and no deaths. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has ordered an investigation.

Bassem Mohammed Khudair told state media on Monday that October exports are averaging above 3.4 million barrels a day, routed partly through Syria. The same week, the dinar traded at its weakest level on record.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces say degraded stock detonated at one of their headquarters on Saturday. Anonymous security and medical sources say a man died. An Israeli paper says it may have been a munition. None of it is confirmed.

Parliament filled the vacancies on 15 October, five months after Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi took office. The government it completes now faces a devalued currency and oil revenue squeezed by the Strait of Hormuz.

Parliament approved 11 outstanding posts on 15 October, five months after Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi took office. The deputy premiership went to the brother of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq leader, and the only American reaction on the record came from a congressman.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces first said there were no casualties, then said five people were hurt by exploding obsolete ammunition. Two anonymous sources told the wires a PMF member was killed.

Islamic State remnants hit federal police near Hawija on 5 October and killed a divisional communications commander on 14 October. The first test of Baghdad’s claim that the group is finished is running now.

Parliament approved 11 ministers and three deputy prime ministers on Thursday evening, among them Laith al-Khazali of Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Washington has said nothing on the record; AFP’s sources say it approved the appointment in advance.

Seventeen lawmakers boycotted Thursday’s session, arguing the new ministries were being carved up by party quota while the state cuts spending. The dinar has been devalued almost 15 percent.

Lawmakers approved 11 portfolios on Thursday, ending a five-month run of vacancies at defence and interior. One of three confirmed deputy prime ministers is under US sanctions, and at least one nomination was left unresolved.

The withdrawal was completed on 30 September and Baghdad declared 1 October “Sovereignty Day.” The counter-ISIS coalition is now headquartered in Jordan, and no public data yet shows what the first post-American month looks like.

Parliament has set a 7 p.m. session for Thursday on nine vacant ministries and four unpaid deputy premierships. As of writing it is a scheduled session and a reported agreement, not a result.

Three ISIS-attributed or ISIS-adjacent incidents in ten days cluster along the Kirkuk–Hamrin–north-Baghdad belt, in the first full month after the American drawdown. Whether that is escalation or baseline is not established.

The official sale rate has been moved from 1,320 dinars, and the parallel market did not follow. Traders are objecting and the Central Bank’s own circular is still not public.

The 30 September cabinet session referred the Popular Mobilisation Forces bill and handed the Foreign Ministry the job of coordinating with the US Treasury on sanctions listings. Everything since rests on anonymous sourcing.

Ali al-Zaidi’s cabinet was sworn in on 14 May with 14 of 23 ministers approved. The two security portfolios that decide who commands the armed factions were never voted on.

The Council of Ministers approved the draft on 29 September, one day before the US withdrawal deadline. Nobody outside the cabinet has published the text.

Parliament approved only 14 of 23 ministers in May. The deals being cut now to fill the rest are expanding the government that was meant to be reformed.

The Council of Ministers approved a draft law on the Popular Mobilisation Forces on 29 September and referred it to the legislature. Parliament has not voted.

A single Qatari-owned outlet says Baghdad has stripped the Popular Mobilisation Forces bill of provisions that drew US objections. Reporting ten days earlier said the cabinet had already approved and referred it.

The Iraqi grid lost more than 3.1 GW when supplies stopped after the strike on South Pars. The resumption announced in March was described only as ‘limited', and no volume has followed.

The Council of Ministers cut the official rate by about 15 per cent, the first move since February 2023, against a seven-month deficit of 26.3 trillion dinars. Parliament is calling for a reversal; so are blocs in the government itself.

The cabinet sent a Popular Mobilisation Forces law to parliament on 29 September. The New Arab reports exclusively that a revised text curbing the force’s powers is being prepared after US objections — one outlet, no document.

National Security Adviser Qasim al-Aboudi told the Associated Press that Baghdad has rejected Damascus’s request for the return of suspects transferred earlier this year, and that about 400 have been assessed as non-members.

The US military declared its withdrawal complete on 30 September. The first test of the government’s claim that nothing changes on the ground arrived within a week.

One outlet says the PMF law is being rewritten under American pressure. Another carries a headline saying the prime minister has warned his own coalition’s armed factions on disarmament. Neither is a document.

Eight days after the last American troops flew out of Erbil, the sharpest claim against Baghdad is not that militias insulted the United States — it is that the militias are legally part of the Iraqi state.

Baghdad’s disarmament clock started on 1 October and is meant to run to 30 June 2027. The largest faction to move has reserved the right to shoot.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s office says weapons will be restricted to state control by 30 June 2027. The claim that five militias have already agreed rests on the prime minister’s own account.

Shafaq News reports a KRG delegation travelled to Baghdad on 6 October. One Finance Committee member puts the draft 2027 budget at 217 trillion dinars with a 50 trillion dinar deficit.

Six days after the US military said its withdrawal from Iraq was complete, a reported Islamic State attack in the northern disputed belt has produced the first fatal casualty of the post-coalition period — on single-source reporting that Baghdad has not yet confirmed.

Iraq has opened Najaf to Iranian carriers at 40 flights daily, excluding Mahan Air, on the strength of an American exemption that Baghdad asserts and Washington has not publicly confirmed.

Operation Inherent Resolve’s mandate in Iraq ended on 30 September. The same week, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi replaced his expiring disarmament deadline with a roadmap running to June 2027.

Kata’ib Hezbollah threatened to close border crossings over the air blockade on Iran. Two days after the US withdrawal, Iraq announced 40 daily Iranian flights into Najaf.

Cabinet approved a draft Popular Mobilisation Forces law on 29 September and referred it to the Council of Representatives; the US military declared its withdrawal complete the next day. A committee member says the bill still has not been tabled.

The prime minister’s office announced the sanctions exemption on Friday. No US Treasury or State Department confirmation has surfaced — this remains a Baghdad claim about a Washington decision.

The prime minister’s announcement, reported Thursday, sets a second deadline where an earlier one lapsed — and arrives while nine of his cabinet’s twenty-three seats remain empty.

Iran publicly demanded Iraq remove flight restrictions imposed under US sanctions. The restrictions are not Baghdad’s to lift, which is the point of saying it out loud.

Iraq and the United States both announced on 1 October that the anti-ISIS coalition’s mission in Iraq is over, and Baghdad called the day Sovereignty Day. The deadline that was supposed to travel with it — no weapons outside state control by 30 September — did not survive the ceremony, and now runs to 30 June 2027. The day before, the cabinet approved the Popular Mobilisation Forces law and sent it to parliament. All of this happens in the seventh month of a US–Iran war, with the Erbil air defences that intercepted Iranian missiles among the equipment that left.

Iraq and the Pentagon both announced on 1 October that the anti-ISIS coalition had completed its withdrawal. Inside the same statement, the deadline for weapons outside state control slipped from 30 September 2026 to 30 June 2027.

Iraq’s Council of Ministers approved the Popular Mobilization Forces bill on the evening of 29 September and referred it to the legislature. Referral is not passage, and the text has not been published.

US Central Command said on Wednesday that the American military mission in Iraq is over, twelve years after it began. The withdrawal ran to a timetable Washington and Baghdad agreed in September 2024, before the war with Iran started — but it is being read across the region as a war outcome. Twenty-four hours earlier, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s cabinet approved the Popular Mobilization Forces law and sent it to parliament. The sequencing is the story, and so is the leverage that survives the troops.

US Central Command said on Wednesday the last American troops had left Iraq, from an unnamed air base in the north. What is confirmed is the announcement; no independent count has been published.

Al-Zaidi’s Council of Ministers approved the Popular Mobilization Forces bill on 29 September and referred it to parliament. His own disarmament deadline has meanwhile moved to June 2027.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that American forces withdrew from their last bases in Iraq, closing a presence that began in 2003 and a coalition mission that ran twelve years. Baghdad has declared four national “Sovereignty Days” to mark it. The other commitment attached to 30 September 2026 — bringing all weapons under state control — now falls due at the end of June 2027. Elsewhere in this edition: Tehran waits on an American answer routed through Doha, Sisi convenes governors and tribal sheikhs at a military command site, and Netanyahu films a threat warning his own allies' paper cannot corroborate.

Reuters reported from Baghdad on Wednesday that American troops had withdrawn from their remaining bases, ending a presence that began in 2003. The on-the-record Iraqi voices are less confident than the official framing.

September 30 was also the day Iraq’s Iran-aligned militias were meant to have brought their weapons under state control. Al Jazeera and The National both report the date pushed back by nine months.

The 30 September date for the US-led coalition’s departure has been confirmed on the record by both governments. What it covers — federal Iraq, or all of Iraq — has not been.

The Oil Ministry says September exports averaged 2.6 million bpd and is publicly correcting reports that put them at four million. Baghdad is simultaneously pushing for a production baseline of six million.

NPR reported on 27 September that US forces are preparing to leave after more than two decades. The federal withdrawal, however, was finished in January — what is left sits in Erbil province.

The 30 September date was both the coalition exit and the deadline to disarm Iran-aligned groups. Only one of the two has held.

Al Jazeera reported late on 26 September that Iraq is seeking a US carve-out from the flight ban it imposed on itself three days earlier. The request, not the ban, is what measures the cost.

The 30 September withdrawal deadline is three days out and Baghdad has called it final. The disarmament target set for the same day has already slipped nine months.

Iraq’s prime minister used his first General Assembly address to claim the monopoly on force and pitch investment, four days before the coalition mission he called final is due to end. A US official would not say how many troops remain.

Najaf, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah halted Iranian flights on Friday, two days after Baghdad. The airport director in Najaf said the instruction came from the prime minister’s office — on the same day Zaidi told the UN the state alone decides.

Five days before the date Iraq’s national security adviser says foreign forces leave, the prime minister’s timeline for the militias has been pushed a year and a half into the future — and it is not clear he owns the file.

Ali al-Zaidi has been in office 134 days. Interior and defence are still vacant, and both files run straight through the weapons question he told Washington he would settle.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told the New York Times his government now aims to finish disarming Iran-aligned factions by mid-2027, nine days before the date his own government set in June.

The State Department readout of Monday’s meeting endorses “dismantling terrorist militias” without blessing any timetable. Baghdad then reissued Washington’s own words as its account of the meeting.

Tehran says it is negotiating to redirect Baghdad-bound traffic to Najaf. No Iraqi authority has confirmed that it will accept it.

The House of Commons Library states the Iraqi government said in August that talks with armed groups “will now continue after 30 September” — and that a bill to standardise PMF pay with the army is before parliament.

With 30 September framed for months as the moment the US-led coalition mission ends, an adviser to Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi now says no fixed deadline exists for handing over militia weapons — and the UK’s own parliamentary researchers say talks will run past the date.

Zaidi has a disarmament deliverable for 30 September: the Yazidi Sinjar Resistance Units. The Iran-aligned factions that matter have instead published a price list, and the government has put part of it before parliament.

The US Mission in Iraq issued a security alert on 19 September using language it has repeated through the year. The document that would settle what 30 September actually covers has not been produced.

The Council on Foreign Relations describes a September 2026 deadline for Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to disarm pro-Iran militias. The underlying demarche, agreement or public US statement has not been found.

Washington’s end-September ultimatum on the Iran-aligned factions lands on a government that filled 14 of 23 cabinet posts in May and has not closed the two that run the security file since.

Throughput on the Ceyhan line and the share of Erbil’s budget Baghdad has actually paid are both cited as facts. Both are assertions by interested parties, and the federal counter-accounting is not public.

Iraq’s youngest prime minister took office on 14 May with 14 of 23 ministries confirmed. Four months on, the count is the most important number on this desk that nobody has published.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported exports falling to 1.75 million barrels a day on 9 August. Iraq Business News projected three million for September. Until SOMO’s monthly statement lands, the desk is publishing the discrepancy rather than a chart.

The 30 September date that ends the US-led military mission in Iraq is also Washington’s deadline for disarming Iran-aligned militias. Only one of the two has a visible plan behind it.

Finance Ministry figures for the first half of 2026 show salaries and social welfare consuming about 82% of federal spending. The militia law, the Kurdistan salary fight and the Ceyhan export target are all arguments about the same ledger.

Thirteen days before the 30 September date Iraq calls the end of the anti-ISIS coalition’s mission, the United States has confirmed the deadline while withholding both its troop figure and where those forces go on 1 October.

Al-Zaidi set 30 September for non-state armed groups to hand their weapons to the state. No handover by any named group has been reported, the PMF law is unresolved, and nine ministries remain unfilled.

An anonymous Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that evidence of drone launches was found near the Duwairij river, and the government relieved the province’s operations commander. Both items are thinly sourced — and both sit on a September deadline nobody has yet produced a document for.

Erdogan’s decree terminating the Iraq–Turkey pipeline agreement took effect on 27 July. No replacement has been signed, and Zaidi’s Ankara visit produced five accords — none of them on oil.

Ali al-Zaidi’s government took a confidence vote on 14 May with portfolios unresolved. In July the completion was deferred to September. On 15 September, the Files could not confirm it has happened.

A federal withdrawal declared eight months ago and a coalition exit reported as imminent this month are not the same event — and the disarmament bargaining sits in the gap between them.

The Iraqi prime minister’s office says memoranda on energy, security and transport are expected with Macron and Merz. A government source ties the timing explicitly to the 30 September end of the US-led Coalition mission.

The Panama-flagged New Andros, storing roughly two million barrels of Iraqi fuel oil, was struck by a drone on 9 September. The Oil Ministry’s own statement says only that it was hit “by an unidentified source.”

Iraq’s government confirmed on Saturday that the attacks which shut Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline originated inside the country, sacked at least one commander in Maysan and agreed to let Tehran join the inquiry.

The same date ends the US-led coalition’s mission and tests Zaidi’s pledge to confine weapons to the state. Defence and Interior have had no confirmed ministers since May.

The Jerusalem Post’s live page carries the line that a Saudi pipeline was struck on 10 September by a drone launched from Iraqi territory. The satellite image is real; the launch point is, so far, an assertion.

The State Administration Coalition says armed activity outside state control is a counterterrorism matter after 30 September. At least one Iranian-backed faction says it will disarm when US forces are gone by 30 September.

With the US-led coalition’s mission ending on 30 September, an unnamed government spokesman announced contracts with the United States, South Korea and Turkey. No values, no unit counts, no delivery dates.

Qasim al-Araji told reporters that regulating weapons will be discussed after 30 September — contradicting a widely circulated claim that the prime minister set that date as a disarmament deadline.

Two Popular Mobilisation Forces bills are being pushed toward parliament ahead of a 30 September date for bringing faction weapons under state control. The date itself rests on a single anonymous source.

The street rate hit a fresh intra-month high in all three main trading centres on 9 September. The unfinished business behind it — Kurdish salaries, oil transit and an energy bill Washington can throttle — has not moved.

Iraq’s national security adviser told state television that 30 September binds the coalition, not the militias. Three weeks out, no Iraqi official has offered a replacement date for disarmament.

A drone struck an Iranian Kurdish opposition party in northern Iraq at 4:50am on 7 September. Baghdad, three weeks from declaring sole control of Iraqi territory, said nothing publicly.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has fixed one date for the departure of the US-led coalition and the same date for non-state groups to surrender their weapons. Neither Washington nor Baghdad has published a figure for what is actually leaving.

Haider al-Aboudi says exports are proceeding normally at more than 2 million bpd and the cabinet will vote on the 2027 budget this month. The July wage crunch and a grid running 11 GW short suggest the definition of normal has moved.

President Nizar Amidi said Iraqi territory will not be used to attack another state — a formulation aimed in two directions, 23 days before both the coalition withdrawal deadline and the deadline to bring all weapons under state control.

Zaidi has told parliament he is eager to implement a 2024 deal on restricting weapons to state control. The same factions have been under US and Israeli attack inside Iraq since the war began in February.

A militia hand-over deadline and a bill entrenching the Popular Mobilisation Forces as a permanent institution cannot both be executed as written. The Files could not obtain the Iraqi primary document behind the deadline.

Kurdpress, citing the Iraqi Oil Ministry, reports the governing treaty formally expired on 27 July. The legal basis for six weeks of subsequent exports has not been reported out in English.

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.