ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s top counter-terrorism body said Thursday it arrested two arms dealers in Baghdad as part of an ongoing crackdown on proliferated arms, as Iraqi officials confirm the government is pressing ahead with a broader push to bring weapons, including those held by Iran-aligned armed groups, under state control.
“Acting on precise intelligence and in accordance with judicial orders,” the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said its forces “carried out a targeted security operation that resulted in the arrest of two weapons dealers” in the Iraqi capital, the agency said in a statement posted on X, alongside pictures of a large cache of seized weapons, explosives and the two detained suspects.
The CTS further reaffirmed its commitment to “carrying out its security duties with full professionalism and competence, in pursuit of a safe and stable Iraq."
The operation comes amid broader efforts by Baghdad to address the widespread proliferation of unlicensed weapons, with an estimated eight million firearms believed to be in circulation.
In early August, interior ministry Spokesman Major General Miqdad Miri said a ministry committee tasked with “regulating weapons, preventing armed displays and protecting economic prosperity” had “registered six million weapons in its database across the country” and “shut down 119 weapons shops” operating without valid licenses.
The push to curb arms proliferation also coincides with efforts by the government of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to bring paramilitary groups - including those aligned with Iran - and their weapons under state control.
In his mid-May inaugural address, Zaidi vowed security reform, including bringing weapons under state control, and in early June ordered the formation of a committee to oversee the disengagement of political parties and armed factions from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
The PMF was established in 2014 following the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, which saw the group seize large parts of the country's north and west. Created in response to a religious edict by Iraq's highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the PMF began as an umbrella organization of roughly 70 predominantly Shiite armed groups with some 250,000 members.
Though a state-funded institution, the PMF includes factions aligned with the Iran-led Axis of Resistance, among them Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
Lieutenant General Saad Maan, head of Iraq's Security Media Cell (SMC) - the media arm of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) - said Monday that Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Imam Ali "continue to hand over unregistered weapons, with efforts underway to receive weapons from other groups in the coming days."
Speaking to state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA), Maan confirmed that "a large number of arms of various types" had been collected from the factions, adding that some “6,000 weapons are being registered across Baghdad and the provinces every week, including those handed over by citizens and tribes.”
Despite some factions expressing willingness to comply with Zaidi's disarmament push, others have set preconditions for doing so.
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