Kataib Hezbollah suspends attacks in Iraq except against aircraft, and rejects a disarmament deal

Kataib Hezbollah told its fighters on Thursday to stop military operations inside Iraq, with one exception: attacks on aircraft it calls hostile if they enter Iraqi airspace. Secretary general Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, also referred to as Ahmad al-Hamidawi, said the suspension stands until government air defences are in place. He also said the group had no understanding with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on handing over weapons.

The statement landed the day after the Pentagon closed the Iraq mission and the last US troops left Erbil. Hamidawi called that departure a round the resistance had won, and said the victor is the one who sets conditions. The Associated Press carried the order to halt operations except against aircraft. The National carried the denial of any disarmament deal.

The date that moved

Zaidi, back from the UN General Assembly in New York, set 30 June 2027 as the last day for ending weapons outside state control. He said 1 October had to be the start of that process, on a clear roadmap. He had previously told Washington the factions would be disarmed by the end of 2026. The September 30 withdrawal date had been tied to that disarmament. The tie was cut. Troops left. The weapons deadline slipped by six months, to the middle of next year.

That slip is the fact Hamidawi's statement is written against. A suspension of attacks is not a transfer of rockets and drones to the army. The aircraft exception keeps a strike right the group says it will use if a jet or a drone it does not accept enters Iraqi airspace. Government air defence is the condition he named for letting even that exception go. Iraq does not have a dense air-defence network of its own. The exception can therefore last as long as the group says the network is unfinished.

Who has claimed to come under the state

Two pro-Tehran groups, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Imam Ali, and Muqtada al-Sadr's Saraya al-Salam, say they have placed their weapons under state authority. Kataib Hezbollah has not. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the umbrella the Iran-backed factions use, said late on Wednesday that it had been in talks for more than 40 days through a four-party committee of the Coordination Framework, the Shiite political bloc, on organising weapons in exchange for full sovereignty. It said it had not received a government answer. Hamidawi's denial of an understanding with Zaidi matches that complaint.

Celebrations by Tehran-aligned factions since Wednesday have treated the US exit as the end of the occupation period that began in 2003. They have not treated it as the end of their own armed role. Zaidi's 30 June 2027 line is an attempt to put a date on that role anyway. The prime minister needs the date for Washington, which linked the dollar window and the troop exit to militia disarmament. He also needs the factions in the Coordination Framework, which hold seats and men under arms. The six-month slip is the space between those two needs.

The operational change on Thursday is the order to stop. If Kataib Hezbollah units follow it, attacks on bases and supply routes inside Iraq pause, and the aircraft exception is the remaining active claim. Whether they follow it will show up in the incident log over the next month, not in the statement.