BAGHDAD — Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi warned on Sunday, November 8, that his government would confront weapons outside state control that threaten security or intimidate citizens 'through the full force of the law', Shafaq News reported. The warning, carried by Iraq's Shafaq News agency, came amid political, security and economic tensions between al-Zaidi and the Iran-aligned armed faction Kataib Hezbollah, and it was publicly backed within hours by the United States' special envoy to Iraq and Syria, Tom Barrack.
Source: Shafaq News, Nov 8 2026 — Barrack backs al-Zaidi, 'militias have no place in Iraq's institutions'
'Prime Minister Al-Zaidi is sending a clear message,' Barrack said, adding that Iraq's future belongs to its people rather than armed factions operating outside the state. Militia influence, the envoy said, 'has no place in Iraq's institutions.' The statement is Washington's clearest public alignment yet with al-Zaidi's campaign to bring all weapons under state control — a campaign the United States has increasingly tied to visible progress before the prime minister's own deadline of June 30, 2027.
Source: Shafaq News, Nov 8 2026 — Barrack statement
The Mosul airport leases: counters, parking and a taxi office
The immediate flashpoint is commercial, not military. On Saturday, al-Zaidi cancelled three leases at Mosul International Airport awarded to companies linked to armed groups — the check-in counter rentals held by SkyPlus, an uncovered parking facility leased to Sama Al-Matar, and a taxi office operated by Al-Faisal Al-Shamikh — and ordered the contracts reassigned to international companies, according to an informed source and contract documents obtained by Shafaq News. Nineveh Governor Abdul Qadir Al Dakhil announced the decision on Saturday evening after meeting al-Zaidi in Baghdad, and said the Transport Ministry had originally awarded the contracts without the local government's knowledge or approval.
Kataib Hezbollah denied controlling airport contracts and urged Iraq's Integrity Commission to investigate the finances of Hassan al-Zaidi, the prime minister's brother. The faction's security chief, Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, attacked the government and Framework leaders in a statement published on Telegram, accused the prime minister and his top aide of amassing illicit wealth — an allegation the faction has not evidenced in the reporting — and dismissed Saudi-owned Al Arabiya's claims that the group controls contracts inside Iraqi airports as a 'blatant lie' and part of a media war. Rudaw's reporting, summarised in analysis coverage, recorded the same sequence: the lease cancellations first, then the faction's counter-attack on the prime minister's family finances.
A disarmament deal the factions say they never signed
The airport fight sits on top of a deeper dispute that broke into the open the same weekend. Late on Saturday, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada dismissed as 'inaccurate remarks' Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein's statement that it had agreed to a government plan to bring weapons under state control, stressing that it had neither declared, endorsed nor signed anything concerning its weapons. The group said it remained committed only to a separate 'sovereignty agreement' it signed alongside three other armed factions with the Coordination Framework parties and the prime minister.
Hussein had said on Saturday that al-Zaidi had reached understandings with four armed factions: Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada had agreed to regulate their weapons, he asserted, while negotiations with Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Kataib Hezbollah were still ongoing. Within the day, one of the two groups he named as having agreed publicly denied it. A government source told Shafaq News that negotiations over disarming the factions had reached a near deadlock because the groups continued to refuse to surrender their weapons, and an informed political source told the agency that National Wisdom Movement leader Ammar al-Hakim and Islamic Supreme Council leader Humam Hamoudi had begun mediating between al-Zaidi and Kataib Hezbollah to avert an armed confrontation.
Source: Shafaq News, Nov 8 2026 — Hussein's account, the denial, near-deadlock and mediation
On Sunday the pressure moved into parliament: Saud al-Saadi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah-affiliated Hoqooq parliamentary bloc, submitted formal questions to al-Zaidi over the hiring of advisers in his office, his personal wealth and alleged conflicts of interest — including whether social media claims that his fortune reached 21 trillion dinars (about $13.8 billion) are accurate, a claim presented in the questions as an allegation to be verified, not a finding. Al-Saadi also asked how many companies, business projects, universities, banks and shareholdings are registered to the prime minister, his immediate family and his brothers, and questioned the continuing Trade Ministry contracts of Al-Owais General Trading Company. The amounts in the faction's earlier statement — 4 billion dinars (about $2.63 million), 300 million dinars (about $197,368) and 40 billion dinars (about $26.32 million) linked to named legal cases — are the faction's figures, reported here as its claims.
Source: Shafaq News, Nov 8 2026 — Hoqooq bloc parliamentary questions; faction statement figures
The factions dispute is the other half of the interview Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein gave Al Jazeera on Saturday, in which he also revealed Washington's request to close all but two of Iraq's border crossings with Iran and put Iraq's loss from the suspension of Hormuz oil exports at about $60 billion. Read the earlier report: Iraq FM says external parties used Iraqi soil to attack neighbours, reveals $60 billion Hormuz loss
What is solid
- Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi warned on Sunday, November 8, that his government would confront weapons outside state control 'through the full force of the law', and US envoy Tom Barrack publicly backed him the same day (Shafaq News).
- Al-Zaidi cancelled three Mosul International Airport leases held by companies linked to armed groups on Saturday and ordered them reassigned to international firms; Nineveh's governor announced the decision (Shafaq News; TrendArab).
- Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada publicly rejected Foreign Minister Hussein's claim that it had agreed to weapons controls, saying it signed only a separate sovereignty agreement (Press TV; Shafaq News).
What is only claimed
- Kataib Hezbollah's allegations about the wealth of the prime minister and his brother Hassan are the faction's claims, put as demands and parliamentary questions; no court or commission finding was reported with them, and the faction's denial that it controls airport contracts is equally its own statement.
- Whether any faction has actually agreed to surrender or regulate its weapons is disputed: the foreign minister counts four understandings, one named faction denies signing anything on its weapons, and a government source describes the talks as near deadlock.
What happens next
Three tracks now run at once: the mediation by al-Hakim and Hamoudi to keep the al-Zaidi–Kataib Hezbollah standoff from turning armed; the parliamentary questions, which give the factions a constitutional route to keep pressure on the prime minister; and the June 30, 2027 weapons deadline, against which Washington says it is measuring Baghdad. Most of Iraq's Iran-aligned factions run brigades inside the Popular Mobilization Forces, the state-funded umbrella formed in 2014 to fight ISIS, while keeping their own chains of command — which is why a fight over airport counters and parking leases matters: it is a fight over whether the factions' money and reach inside state institutions survive the deadline. For the Gulf region watching Iraq, the stakes travel: the same factions are accused by Riyadh of launching attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure from Iraqi soil, an accusation Baghdad says it is investigating.