Iranian proxies in Iraq willing to disarm to avoid conflict with US, commanders and Iraqi officials say

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Several powerful Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq are prepared to disarm for the first time to avert the threat of an escalating conflict with the US Trump administration, 10 senior commanders and Iraqi officials tell Reuters.

The move to defuse tensions follows repeated warnings issued privately by US officials to the Iraqi government since Trump took power in January, according to the sources, which include six local commanders of four major militias.

The officials told Baghdad that unless it acted to disband the militias operating on its soil, America could target the groups with airstrikes, the people add.

Izzat al-Shahbndar, a senior Shi’ite Muslim politician close to Iraq’s governing alliance, tells Reuters that discussions between Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and several militia leaders are “very advanced,” and the groups are inclined to comply with US calls for disarmament.

“The factions are not acting stubbornly or insisting on continuing in their current form,” he says, adding that the groups are “fully aware” they could be targeted by the US.

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.

“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, the most powerful Shi’ite militia, says, who speaks from behind a black face mask and sunglasses.

The commanders say 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 militias are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of about 10 hardline Shi’ite armed factions that collectively command about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, according to two security officials who monitor militias’ activities.

The Resistance group, a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, has claimed responsibility for dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war erupted about 18 months ago.