The Militia Digest

Harakat al-Nujaba called, according to 964media, for a 5 p.m. sit-in later today outside Najaf airport over Iranian flights that Reuters reported suspended at three Iraqi airports on Friday. Al-Nujaba TV (Nujaba — official) carried an appeal attributed to Najaf residents placing the sit-in at the airport entrance; that appeal did not itself name Nujaba as its organizer. The gathering follows Akram al-Kaabi’s earlier conditional call for airport sit-ins, while 964media said tribal leaders, pilgrimage-service groups and aviation workers had also been urged to attend. MP Abbas al-Ulayawi said more than 50 MPs had met and begun collecting signatures to review the suspension; he expected more than 100 to join. Al-Janoub TV (Harakat al-Jihad wal-Bina — official) captioned footage as Basra tribal opposition demanding immediate reversal. On Al-Ahad TV (AAH — official), legal expert Ali al-Tamimi challenged the restriction’s legal basis and called for an extraordinary parliamentary session. Hikma Movement member Hashim al-Hasnawi said Iranian flights would resume at Najaf on 30 September and Iraqi companies would handle aviation and ground services; these were his claims, not airport announcements. Baghdad, meanwhile, says it is seeking U.S. exemptions for some airports to restore civilian travel.

The flight restrictions are also on the agenda of a meeting Iraq’s four presidencies are expected to hold later today, according to an unnamed source cited by Shafaq News. The source said they would discuss steps to place faction weapons under state control after the announced end of the coalition’s presence. That is a planned discussion, not an agreed weapons-control measure. Unit 10,000 (KH — affiliated) quoted Ali al-Asadi (Nujaba — Political Council head) saying the justification for resistance would end if Iraq could govern itself and U.S. interference in its decisions stopped. Al-Asadi set a condition for ending resistance, not a commitment to hand over Nujaba’s weapons. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has called for state authority over weapons, while Hoquq MP Mohammed Jabar al-Hasnawi accepted state control of decisions but not weapons. State of Law leader Nouri al-Maliki has said a committee would announce a weapons-control programme and timetable on 30 September; no such announcement has yet been made.

Al-Ahad TV published a graphic describing 30 September as the complete departure of U.S. forces. Al-Nujaba TV, by contrast, quoted guest Sheikh Mujtaba al-Mansouri calling it a day of incomplete sovereignty, not disputing the departure itself. Air force commander Khalid al-Tamimi said Iraqi drones had replaced coalition aircraft on reconnaissance missions and that coalition forces had flown no missions inside Iraq since the start of the year. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, in remarks carried by Al-Ahad, raised concern about withdrawal without defensive systems; he said the Region had faced more than a thousand rocket and drone attacks. The Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga Ministry said in a 27 September statement that its forces remained prepared, but that Baghdad was responsible for protecting the Region’s airspace. Al-Ahad guests offered different explanations for the withdrawal: Adnan al-Sarraj credited popular and resistance pressure, while Fadhel al-Yunis pointed to an Iraqi government request and an Iraqi-American preference. Those guests’ explanations are not AAH statements.