Sunday, 23 August 2026

Iraqi intelligence seized drones, munitions and weapons in Maysan on 22 August, raids reported in the south as the arms crackdown persists and separately as an intelligence seizure of drones and weapons. They fall inside a clock the parliament speaker set the same day, fixing end-September for the state to collect arms held outside its hands. The president told reporters the Peshmerga are not part of the weapons process — a carve-out extended to Erbil's forces and to no Baghdad-based faction, whose channels relayed his handover demand a day earlier without any of them answering it.

The PMF authority said on Sunday morning that its 63rd Brigade repelled an ISIS assault on a commando-battalion position in the Marsa Ali sector of Tuz Khurmatu, east of Salah al-Din. No group claimed the attack and every version of it traces back to the PMF's own words, as today's militia digest sets out — an account the factions sourced entirely themselves, made in the weeks the state has given them to disarm.

On the domestic front, the office of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki denied reports that he had agreed to relinquish the Interior Ministry, a portfolio in play as post-election government formation proceeds. Shibl al-Zaydi joined the Shiite Coordination Framework's leadership in the same days, placing the bloc bargaining over the security ministries under expanded leadership.

Baghdad reaffirmed on Sunday morning its readiness for what it called the "historic" withdrawal of the US-led coalition, and parliament is to take up a strategic pact with France. A US federal judge struck down the immigrant visa ban covering 75 countries, Iraq among them; the restriction on Iraqis fell in a US court, not at Baghdad's request.

On the economy, Iran granted permission for some Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, covering only part of the fleet at Baghdad's request. An education official said nearly 20,000 employees of the electricity ministry are illiterate, Rudaw reported, a state payroll figure standing against the same year in which a trading firm put Erbil's gold and silver trade at 172 tons worth $885 million.

The PMF authority said on Sunday morning that a force from its 63rd Brigade beat back an ISIS assault on a commando-battalion position in the Marsa Ali mountain sector of Tuz Khurmatu, east of Salah al-Din, and drove the attackers into rugged ground without their reaching their objective. Faction channels had been running the incident since late the previous night: Unit 10,000 (KH — affiliated) first reported an explosion and gunfire on the approaches to the mountains, then it, Sabereen News (KH — affiliated) and Al-Ghadeer TV (Badr Organization — official) carried an identical operational line about an RPG launcher and a holding force firing back. Within about twenty minutes the same networks, joined by Al-Ahad TV (AAH — official), Watan TV (Badr Organization — affiliated) and iNEWS (KSS — affiliated), had recast an unidentified attacker as "terrorist ISIS gangs". Al-Ghadeer TV carried a one-line version of the PMF statement and Al-Nujaba TV (Nujaba — official) the full text; no group claimed the attack, and every account traces back to the PMF's own words.

Outside the faction channels, two press reports within about twenty-five minutes said the Popular Mobilization Forces had repelled the Islamic State attack and opened a follow-on operation, but they diverged on the basics: Shafaq News placed it east of Salah al-Din with a pursuit of the attackers, Kurdistan24 placed it in Khurmatu with a clearing sweep. Neither named the formation, a casualty figure or the size of the force — the 63rd Brigade appears only in the PMF's own account. No Iraqi security authority beyond the PMF has given an independent account of the engagement.

In the militia space, Al-Ahad TV spent the late evening of 22 August building a case against PMF Authority chairman Falih al-Fayyad on its own airtime. Five segments in about forty minutes carried MPs Safaa al-Jabri and Rahim al-Aboudi accusing him of violating law, custom and military norms over his refusal to appear before parliament and his handling of a reported shelling of the Hashd, with al-Jabri saying Fayyad had "lost the confrontation" and that parliament would escalate, possibly as it did in removing the Investment Authority chief. Four further items ran later still, carrying MP Salem al-Abbasawi saying Fayyad's media justification was insufficient and that he could be referred to the courts rather than merely dismissed, and that wounded members have gone without entitlements since 2014. Neither Fayyad nor the PMF has answered, and Al-Janoub TV (Harakat al-Jihad wal-Bina — official), covering the PMF law in the same hours, named no obstructor at all.

The same channel widened the charge to the strike itself. In three items over 41 minutes it carried analyst Muhammad al-Zeidawi saying Saudi Arabia had committed the aggression against PMF personnel and that Fayyad, as the force's first responsible official, must disclose what happened, while Sadiqoun MP Salem al-Absaoui said continued absence from parliament would leave him "accused". Early on Sunday researcher Wathiq al-Jabri told the channel that Fayyad bears full responsibility for not ordering the evacuation of headquarters that were struck, under an on-screen line that Fayyad "hides behind political targeting". Al-Absaoui also said most members of the parliamentary Security Committee skipped the session convened for Fayyad's appearance and that some were barred by their own blocs, naming none. No other channel carried any of it, and no faction has defended Fayyad.

Personnel whose PMF contracts were terminated tried to reach Baghdad on Sunday morning and were stopped short of it. Al-Nujaba TV reported the Hilla–Baghdad road cut at the Latifiyah checkpoint in front of the convoy, and Sabereen News posted footage of traffic halted completely at a city entrance, protesters barred from the capital and a heavy security deployment at the protest site. The demonstrators want their contracts confirmed and food-security measures applied. Neither channel said which body ordered the closures, and no faction backed or disavowed the dismissed contract-holders.

On the hiring file, Al-Janoub TV carried a civil examiner alleging that Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari appointed staff on contract despite a legal bar on such appointments; twenty-eight minutes later Al-Ittijah TV (KH — official) went live from Baghdad, where contract employees demanding permanent status warned they would escalate if nobody met them. The same channel had earlier aired a speaker identified only as Mehdi saying a year has passed without a reply to a letter sent to the prime minister, and that "we do not want names appointed to the Interior Ministry covertly". The Interior Ministry has said nothing on either strand. Separately, Al-Ittijah TV and Al-Ghadeer TV reproduced the Integrity Commission's call to finish the stalled Al-Shaala and Al-Hurriya hospital projects in wording identical but for the body's full title, neither adding a word of its own.