Nujaba commander says resistance will remain ‘in spite of’ Trump and Barrack

BAGHDAD — The resistance factions and the Popular Mobilization Forces will remain, the military deputy of Harakat al-Nujaba said on Tuesday, a day after U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said Washington and Baghdad had agreed that only the state would hold military force by June next year.

“The resistance will remain, and the Popular Mobilization Forces will remain, in spite of criminal Trump and his Zionist broker Barrack,” Abdul Qadir al-Karbalai wrote. “We will not bend or retreat, and we will remain defenders of the homeland, sovereignty and holy sites until victory or martyrdom.” He did not cite a specific statement by either man.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told The New York Times on Monday that armed groups would observe a 90-day halt in attacks from Sept. 30 before starting to transfer weapons, with the process to end by June 30, 2027. Barrack told Al-Monitor after Zaidi met Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York that the two sides had agreed that by the end of June “only the state is the keeper of the military force.” U.S. chargé d’affaires Steven Fagin told Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani this month that Washington supports an Iraq without militias armed outside government authority.

Nujaba has held its position through the talks. After meeting Coordination Framework leaders, it said on Sept. 4 that it would not surrender what it calls the resistance’s weapons and would continue to support the PMF as a national institution. On Sept. 10, its political council chief Ali al-Asadi said the Framework had moved from proposing that weapons be restricted exclusively to the state to regulating them, and that negotiations could run for months. Nujaba leader Akram al-Kaabi threatened this month to target any U.S. troops remaining in Iraq after Sept. 30.