The leader of a pro-Iran militia in Iraq has rejected American demands to disband, a day after the US placed a $10 million bounty on his head.
Akram Al Kaabi said his militia, Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba, would not lay down its weapons and urged other factions to “reject any discussion of this issue altogether”.
His remarks pose a challenge to Iraq's Prime Minister-designate Ali Al Zaidi. The US has made disbanding and disarming Iraq's many Iran-aligned militias a condition for sustaining its political, economic and military support.
In a statement posted on X, Mr Al Kaabi said “the resistance factions’ weapons are a red line … we used them to protect Iraq from defilement of ISIS and their American masters”.
He said those weapons “will not be surrendered as long as we breathe and will not be taken even if lives are sacrificed”.
“Israel is inciting the embassy charge d’affaires in Iraq to speak about the resistance weapons,” he claimed.
The statement came a day after the US announced a $10 million bounty for information on Mr Al Kaabi.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme said members of his militia have attacked US bases and diplomatic posts in Iraq and Syria, killing at least one contractor and wounding a service member.
Mr Al Kaabi, a cleric sanctioned by the US Treasury since 2008 for “threatening the peace and stability of Iraq”, has long demanded the full withdrawal of American troops. Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group in 2019.
Mr Al Kaabi rose through the ranks of various Shiite armed groups after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He has led calls for attacks on US forces, proclaimed that Shiite groups should “liberate Iraq” from the Americans and supported Hamas in the war in Gaza.
In 2013, he formed the Ammar Ben Yassir Brigade to join the fight in Syria alongside the now deposed president Bashar Al Assad’s army. That then became the Al Nujaba Movement.
Late last year, Mr Al Kaabi threatened the US special envoy to Iraq at the time, Baghdad-born Mark Savaya, calling him a “traitor” to the country of his birth. Mr Al Kaabi said the “Islamic Resistance” would “put a stone in his mouth and return him to his masters who enslaved him”.
This is the fourth bounty the US has announced for information on leaders of Iran-backed Iraqi militias in the past few months. After the US and Israel began strikes on Iran at the end of February, Iraqi militias stepped up attacks on American interests in the region.
In Iraq alone, US facilities have been hit more than 600 times since the war started, including drone and missile strikes on the US embassy complex and an outpost near Baghdad airport.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq – an umbrella of Iran-aligned groups that includes Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba – has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks on US targets. Washington has responded with retaliatory air strikes and increased sanctions on militia leaders.
The latest move underscores Washington’s growing pressure on Iran-backed groups as Mr Al Zaidi works to form a new government. He is set to submit his cabinet to parliament for endorsement this month.
