Asaib Ahl al-Haq bloc asks speaker why PMF bill has not reached parliament

BAGHDAD — Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s parliamentary bloc has written to Speaker Haibat al-Halbousi asking why a bill governing the Popular Mobilization Forces has not reached parliament nearly four weeks after the cabinet approved it.

The Sadiqoun bloc, the political wing of the Iran-aligned armed group, said in the letter, a copy of which 964media obtained, that the cabinet voted on the bill at its 21st regular session on Sept. 29 and referred it to parliament for a vote under the constitution, citing a statement from the prime minister’s media office. “Nearly four weeks have passed since then, and the draft has not been presented to the council to date,” it wrote.

The law has “a direct connection to the rights of members of the Popular Mobilization Forces and the families of the martyrs and the wounded,” the bloc said.

It asked Halbousi to say whether the bill had officially reached parliament and, if it had not, to write to Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi asking him to send it without delay and to explain why it had been held up. Once the bill arrives, the bloc asked, the speaker should refer it to the relevant committee and put it on parliament’s agenda.

Sadiqoun has pressed for the legislation for months. In July, the bloc set the government a deadline it called a final opportunity to send the bill back to parliament and warned it would use parliament’s oversight powers once the deadline passed. A campaign group began an open-ended sit-in in Basra on Sept. 1 demanding the law.

The PMF was formed in 2014 after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s call to fight Isis and was recognized by law in 2016 as part of Iraq’s security forces under the commander-in-chief. It is an umbrella of dozens of brigades, some closely tied to Iran. The new law would replace the 2016 law and set out the force’s structure, powers and the rights of its personnel.

An earlier version reached a second reading in July 2025, when most Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers walked out, and the government withdrew it the following month. The United States opposed it: Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned then-Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a July 2025 call that it would institutionalize Iranian influence and armed groups.

The U.S. designated Asaib Ahl al-Haq a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2020. In June, the group formed a committee to separate its forces from the PMF under Zaidi’s policy of bringing weapons under state control. The policy sets a 90-day halt to attacks from Sept. 30, followed by a handover of weapons ending June 30, 2027.