Kataib Hezbollah tells its fighters to stop, except against aircraft, as US troops leave

Kataib Hezbollah's secretary general, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, told his fighters on Wednesday, 1 October, to stop military operations in Iraq, with one exception: hostile aircraft in Iraqi airspace, until government air defences are finished. The order came as the US-led coalition completed a withdrawal that had been tied, on paper, to militia disarmament. He also denied that the group had reached any understanding with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

The line he used was not a concession. "The resistance has won this round, and the victor is the one who imposes his conditions on the enemy," he said, treating the American departure as the result. The 30 September date had been linked to disarmament and was then pushed to June 2027. Al-Hamidawi said there was no need to speculate about a bargain. "We did not reach a result with the prime minister, we waited for his answer until the last hour and it is better to start anew." A pause that the speaker calls a victory, with aircraft still on the permitted list, is not the handover of weapons the original deadline described.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the umbrella for the Iran-backed groups, said it had spent more than 40 days in talks through a quadripartite committee set up by the Coordination Framework. The subject was organising its weapons in exchange for full sovereignty. It said it had received no government answer. "The resistance's weapons will remain as a trust in the hands of our mujahideen," the umbrella said, and it is not bound by a political timetable. That statement and al-Hamidawi's order sit side by side. One says the weapons stay. The other says operations stop, except aircraft. A trust that is not used is still a trust. A trust that can still be aimed at aircraft is not stored.

Other groups have claimed a different status. Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Imam Ali, and Moqtada al-Sadr's Saraya al-Salam say they have placed their weapons under state authority. Kataib Hezbollah has not said that. It has said it will stop, with an air exception, and that it beat the clock on the American exit. The prime minister's public line is that 1 October is the start of a state monopoly on weapons. The group's public line is that no deal was reached. Both cannot describe the same arrangement. The useful reading is that the monopoly is asserted and not accepted by the largest of the Iran-aligned armed groups.

The aircraft exception is the clause that keeps the order from being a ceasefire in the ordinary sense. Hostile aircraft violating Iraqi airspace remain a permitted target until Iraqi air defences are complete. Who decides that an aircraft is hostile, and who decides that the defences are complete, is not in the statement. A group that keeps that judgment has not disarmed. It has chosen a narrower target list for a period it has not dated.

June 2027 is now the date attached to disarmament, slipped from September 2026. Between those dates the American ground presence that was the original bargaining chip is gone. Al-Hamidawi's argument is that this sequence is a win, and that talks can start again. Zaidi's argument is that the state now holds the field. The fighters have a third text: stop, except aircraft, weapons still ours. That is the order in force on the day the coalition left.