Sadiqoun's deputy chairman put a number on the weapons file this evening, telling Al-Ahad TV (AAH — official) that his bloc agrees with 90 percent of the factions' conditions for restricting weapons to the state and that no faction or political party objects to the principle. Ahmad al-Mousawi went further, saying Iran supports the restriction, that Prime Minister al-Zaidi has committed to sending the two PMF laws to parliament, and that applying the counter-terrorism law to the factions would be a catastrophe — the file, he said, must not be subjected to outside pressure. No other faction has confirmed his consensus claim, and none has published the conditions he counted. Within the same hour Al-Ittijah TV (KH — official) framed Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's Baghdad visit around holding on to the resistance's weapons rather than around any restriction formula.
The Karkh Court acquittal that ten channels carried this morning turned into a same-evening campaign by three factions' media over how the man was taken. Between 18:29 and 19:02, Al-Ahad TV said Qais al-Khazali intervened to move Abbas al-Yaqoubi — the intelligence official of the PMF's Baghdad Belt Operations command — into PMF security, called the arrest procedurally flawed, and reported that Baghdad Belt Operations would sue the Intelligence Service over what it called malicious charges. Al-Kornet al-Kata'ibi (KSS — affiliated) posted images of an afternoon protest against the abduction, while Unit 10,000 (KH — affiliated) and Sabereen News (KH — affiliated) carried hundreds gathering at night at the Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis statue in Nasiriyah, naming the Counter-Terrorism Service as the abductor in coordination with the Intelligence Service. Nujaba's Al-Nujaba TV and Noon Media added crowd footage within a minute of each other demanding "such actions not be repeated", with Noon Media alone naming al-Yaqoubi; neither Iraqi service has responded, and no outside coverage of the arrest or the acquittal has appeared.
Parliament has opened a fact-finding committee into why PMF headquarters were not evacuated before the strikes that faction channels describe as American-Saudi. Al-Ahad TV published the committee's formation document this afternoon and named PMF chairman Falih al-Fayyadh as called to appear on Thursday to explain the failure; Al-Nujaba TV (Nujaba — official) and Al-Kornet al-Kata'ibi carried word-for-word identical text about the committee that named neither Fayyadh nor a date. Hours later the same AAH channel carried Sadiqoun deputy chairman al-Mousawi saying Fayyadh's disdain for parliament is astonishing, that his presence insults the PMF, that Baathists and terrorists were appointed inside the body, and that signatures would be gathered to question him. An hour earlier the channel had aired analyst Mohammad al-Husseini calling Fayyadh's replacement an urgent necessity. No other faction has taken a position on Fayyadh either way, and no militia claim of retaliation for the strikes has appeared.
Badr's morning objection to the 30 September date hardened into a contradiction inside its own media. Watan TV (Badr Organization — affiliated) quoted Badr leader Muhammad Mahdi al-Bayati saying there would be no American withdrawal and no weapons handover on 30 September; half an hour earlier Al-Ghadeer TV (Badr Organization — official) had carried National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji saying the government continues implementing its programme to restrict weapons to the state. Al-Ittijah TV ran correspondent reports from Wasit and Salah al-Din the same afternoon quoting residents who said withdrawing the resistance's weapons would bring terrorism back to liberated areas.
Kataib Hezbollah's own channel set a precondition rather than a position. Al-Ittijah TV carried Dhargham al-Karaawi, head of KH's Diwaniyah representation office, saying the future of the resistance's weapons cannot be discussed until "Haj al-Assaf's conditions" are met — conditions the post does not spell out. Five minutes earlier Shafaq News reported that the Shia arrangement on al-Zaidi's table is managing the weapons rather than removing them; no faction has accepted or rejected that formula.
In the militia space, two channels posted the same seven Arabic words — "Sheikh Akram does not give up his weapon" — nineteen seconds apart over footage of the same dense crowd waving red-and-yellow flags. Jehad Brothers Team (Nujaba — affiliated) and Shabab al-Islam (Ashab al-Kahf — owned/non-official) named no law, no state body and no opponent, and Akram al-Kaabi's own channel did not carry the line. Six minutes before the slogan, the Nujaba-affiliated channel had published a longer bylined argument that Baghdad applies "double standards" to weapons, naming the Peshmerga as a formation outside full federal command that escapes the terrorist label, and grounding the claim in Article 1(4) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and General Assembly resolutions 1514, 2625 and 3314 rather than in clerical or Iranian authority.
THINGS TO WATCHFayyadh appears — or does not — before the parliamentary committee on Thursdaymedium likelihoodhigh impactAl-Ahad TV published a committee document naming Falih al-Fayyadh for Thursday over the failure to evacuate PMF headquarters, a date that arrives inside the week.
Nujaba or KSS channels take up the Fayyadh namingmedium likelihoodmedium impactTheir identical committee text omitted Fayyadh and the Thursday date that AAH's channel supplied, so whether they adopt the naming shows if the campaign against him is one faction's or three.
A faction publishes the conditions al-Mousawi counted, or disputes his 90 percentmedium likelihoodhigh impactHe claimed no faction or party objects to restricting weapons to the state and that Iran supports it, while KH's channel framed Ghalibaf's visit around keeping the weapons.
Baghdad Belt Operations files its lawsuit against the Intelligence Servicelow likelihoodmedium impactAl-Ahad TV said the command would sue over what it called malicious charges against al-Yaqoubi; a filing under that name would be checkable, as would silence.
Al-Ghadeer TV repeats the 30 September rejection in Badr's own voicemedium likelihoodmedium impactBadr's official channel carried the national security adviser on implementing weapons monopoly while its affiliated outlet quoted al-Bayati rejecting any handover on that date.