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Some of the largest Iran-affiliated armed factions in Iraq are willing to disarm to avoid a conflict with the United States, Reuters reported on April 7.
Citing ten senior commanders and Iraqi officials, the news agency said that the move is meant to defuse tensions after repeated warnings issued privately by U.S. officials to the Iraqi government since President Donald Trump took power in January.
Washington told Baghdad that the factions could be targeted with strikes if they refuse to disarm, according to the sources.
Izzat al-Shahbndar, a senior Shiite Muslim politician close to Iraq’s governing alliance, told Reuters that discussions between Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and several Iran-affiliated commanders are “very advanced,” and the factions are inclined to comply with U.S. calls for disarmament.
“The factions are not acting stubbornly or insisting on continuing in their current form,” he said, adding that the groups are “fully aware” they could be targeted by the US.
The six militia commanders interviewed by the news agency are from the Kataib Hezbollah, Nujabaa, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada, and Ansarullah al-Awfiyaa groups.
“Trump is ready to take the war with us to worse levels, we know that, and we want to avoid such a bad scenario,” a commander of Kataib Hezbollah, considered to be the most powerful ally of Iran in Iraq, said.
The commanders noted that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had given them its blessing to take whatever decisions they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially dangerous confrontation with the U.S. and Israel.
The factions are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iran’s allies in Iraq with some 50,000 fighters and a massive arsenal that includes long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, according to two security officials who monitor the operations of the factions.
The group launched dozens of attacks against Israel following the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, and is said to be responsible for a drone attack in January of last year that killed three U.S. service members in a little known base on Jordan’s border with Syria, dubbed Tower 22.
Following a serious threat from Israel last November, the group halted all operations. It later refrained from intervening in Syria to save the regime of president Bashar al-Assad, who was among Iran’s top allies in the Middle East.
Iran’s influence in the Middle East took a serious hit over the last year. Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon left Hamas and Hezbollah weaker than ever. The forces of the Islamic Republic were also expelled from Syria with the fall of the Assad regime.
Now, the Islamic Republic is facing unprecedented threats from the Trump administration, which appears to be preparing to take military action against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.
While the disarmament of Iran-affiliated factions in Iraq will be in a way another blow to Tehran, it could allow the country to preserve some of its influence there instead of risking everything in another confrontation.
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