Thursday, 20 August 2026

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf left Baghdad without what he came for: sources told Asharq al-Awsat that his visit, which began on 19 August, fell short of all its objectives — the same paper having reported that he carried an Iranian plan to "hide" the factions' weapons rather than surrender them before the 30 September deadline. Iraqi officials used the meetings to restate the ban on armed groups threatening other countries, and Baghdad announced the arrest of two arms dealers the same day as part of the push to bring weapons under state control. On the way out, Tehran said banking barriers with Iraq had been removed, naming no bank, channel or date.

Six consecutive commentator items on Al-Ahad TV (Asaib Ahl al-Haq — official) attacked PMF Commission chairman Falih al-Fayyad on the evening of 20 August for failing to appear before a parliamentary fact-finding committee, one analyst saying he would be held legally accountable if negligence is proven over the unannounced evacuation of PMF headquarters. The broadside came the same day a government spokesman said the long-delayed PMF law would pass "in the coming days" and a Sadiqoun deputy said Asaib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais al-Khazali had intervened over the arrest of a PMF officer; neither Khazali nor the Sadiqoun bloc has said anything about Fayyad in its own name, as today's militia digest sets out.

Brent settled at 95.29 dollars a barrel, up 3.1%, and the prompt month is trading 2.5% higher at 93.82, with Chinese refiners buying up Iraqi cargoes as more supply leaves Hormuz. Baghdad has asked Tehran for special treatment on its own exports through the strait, while a fuel tanker docked amid persisting gasoline shortages at home.

In the north, the tripartite northern export deal was renewed on 20 August, spurring field restarts in Kurdistan, the concrete movement on northern crude that Baghdad's release of $45 million of $267 million in pending farmer payments for the Region had not yet produced. The chief executive of Korek Telecom separately called a Baghdad decision against the company illegal and personal.

AAH's Al-Ahad TV turned on the man who runs the PMF. Between 17:57 and 18:14 on 20 August the channel published six consecutive items attacking PMF Commission chairman Falih al-Fayyad for not appearing before a parliamentary fact-finding committee: political analyst Ahmed al-A'araji called the non-response evasion and "rebellion against the legislative authority" and said Fayyad should step aside if he cannot protect the PMF and its fighters, while commentators Khalid Abu Iraq and al-Zubaidi said his silence may establish accusations of negligence, that "nothing remains" of the PMF, and that he allies with each prime minister before elections to keep his post. In a separate segment aired twice within two minutes, analyst Muhammad Salah Turki said Fayyad "will be held legally accountable" if negligence is proven over the failure to notify the evacuation of PMF headquarters before the aggression. The attack runs entirely through commentators on AAH's platform, not through a statement by Qais al-Khazali or the Sadiqoun bloc, and no other tracked channel mentioned the committee or Fayyad's absence.

While Al-Ahad TV questioned Fayyad's fitness for office, five channels under four different owners carried him without comment. Al-Nujaba TV (Nujaba — official) published the readout of Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi's meeting with the Badr parliamentary bloc, in which he said the government would proceed with submitting the PMF law and described the PMF as part of the formations and branches of the armed forces; within the hour Fayyad's line that the law on service, retirement and structure goes to parliament within two weeks appeared on Al-Ghadeer TV (Badr — official), iNEWS and Al-Kornet al-Kata'ibi (both KSS — affiliated) and Shabab al-Islam (Ashab al-Kahf — owned/non-official). Watan TV (Badr — affiliated) carried the same sentence word-for-word with an image of Fayyad before an Iraqi flag. No carrier attached a condition, an endorsement or a claim of credit, and the two state formulations differ: the prime minister's places the PMF inside the armed forces, Fayyad's is confined to service, retirement and structure. A PMF spokesman separately told reporters the law would pass in the coming days.

On the weapons file, Al-Nujaba TV contradicted itself inside one hour. At 17:25 the channel posted a one-line item under a don't-hand-over hashtag: no surrender of weapons, and if the PMF is dissolved "we return as before" — without saying what "as before" means. Twenty-seven minutes earlier and ten minutes later the same channel carried Fayyad saying the PMF has not joined the military confrontation and is an active force ready to confront any security challenge, and separately quoting him that any PMF member under a judicial order "we are the ones who will arrest him" and hand him to the competent authorities — placing the commission, not the police or the judiciary, as the executing body. Minutes afterwards Al-Ittijah TV (KH — official) carried KH's Najaf representative Abdullah al-Marabi saying "we are with the state" while asking those demanding the resistance's weapons be withdrawn "where were they in 2014?"

Badr and KH split on Jurf al-Nasr and on who may organise the weapons. Watan TV carried MP Abu Turab al-Tamimi commending the prime minister and the armed forces for holding Jurf al-Nasr under security-force administration and saying al-Zaydi is capable of organising weapons within state frameworks; within roughly seven minutes either side, Al-Ittijah TV aired a Diwaniyah correspondent on residents' demands over the resistance weapons, and Sabereen News (KH — affiliated) published a statement attributed to Baghdad tribal sheikhs rejecting any handover of Jurf al-Nasr. Al-Nujaba TV ran the same tribal declaration as a photograph of about thirty men behind a podium, naming no signatory and establishing neither the location nor the date. The Badr line is spoken by a named MP; the KH line is voiced through residents and tribal notables, with no KH official attached to it. Al-Ittijah TV ran a further report by Younis al-Bayati attributing to Diyala tribes a rejection of external dictates and adherence to the resistance's weapons, again with no KH official named.

Sabereen News turned Tehran's Hormuz position into an attack on an Iraqi official. Relaying at 17:12 the Islamic Republic's statement that the strait is closed to everyone but remains open to Iraqi oil and Iraqi livelihoods, the channel called the Iraqi parliament speaker "the UAE's representative in Iraq" over a tweet on the Persian Gulf, and closed by warning Iraqis to know who is responsible for this fitna if their economy is endangered. The closing warning carries no attribution, so it is not established whether it is Sabereen's own line or a continuation of the relayed Iranian text. Baghdad's own approach ran the other way: Iraq asked Iran for special treatment on oil exports through Hormuz, and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf's Baghdad visit — the trip the desk flagged this morning — is reported to have fallen short of its objectives, with Baghdad reaffirming to him its ban on armed groups threatening other countries.

Unit 10,000 (KH — affiliated) posted this morning that the American occupation army had announced the arrival of the aircraft carrier George Washington in the Middle East, appending "welcome to your hell" over a flight-deck image. The post names no Iraqi target, no timetable and makes no operational claim, no other tracked channel carried the item or the phrase, and the carrier's arrival is not independently established. Separately, Al-Ittijah TV published a curated round-up of X posts answering calls to withdraw the resistance's weapons under the headline "How can the page of the men be turned so easily?" — no named opponent, no stated action, no KH statement.