The move to defuse tensions follows repeated warnings issued privately by U.S. officials to the Iraqi government since Trump took power in January, according to the sources who include six local commanders of four major militias.
Izzat al-Shahbndar, a senior Shi’ite Muslim politician close to Iraq’s governing alliance, told Reuters that discussions between Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and several militia leaders were “very advanced”, and the groups were inclined to comply with U.S. calls for disarmament.
The six militia commanders interviewed in Baghdad and a southern province, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation, are from the Kataib Hezbollah, Nujabaa, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada and Ansarullah al-Awfiyaa groups.
The commanders said their main ally and patron, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) military force, had given them its blessing to take whatever decisions they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the United States and Israel.
The Resistance group, a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, have claimed responsibility for dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war erupted about 18 months ago.
The two Iraqi security officials said Sudani was pressing for disarmament from all the militias of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which declare their allegiance to Iran’s IRGC or Quds Force rather than to Baghdad.
Many commanders have also stepped up their security measures in that time, changing their mobile phones, vehicles and abodes more frequently, they said.
An American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that there had been instances in the past when the militias had ceased their attacks because of U.S. pressure, and was sceptical any disarmament would be long-term.
SHAKEN: IRAN’S AXIS OF RESISTANCE
While the fate of any disarmament process remains uncertain, the discussions nonetheless mark the first time the militias have been prepared to give ground to longstanding Western pressure to demilitarize.
Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been hammered by Israel since the Gaza war began while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by U.S. airstrikes since last month. The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another key Iranian ally, has further weakened the Islamic Republic’s influence.
U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth told Prime Minister Sudani in a phone call on March 16, shortly after the American strikes on the Houthis began, to prevent the militias carrying out revenge attacks on Israel and U.S. bases in the region in support of their allies, according to two government officials and two security sources briefed on the exchange.
Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie, a former political adviser to Sudani, told Iraqi state TV that the United States had long pressed Iraq’s leadership to dismantle Shi’ite militias, but this time Washington might not take no for an answer.
“If we do not voluntarily comply, it may be forced upon us from the outside, and by force.”
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