An Iraqi military expert, commenting on ‘Sky News Arabia’ on the feasibility of the new government plan, requires popular support, as well as US intervention, for its success, given the huge arsenal of weapons held by factions and clans, and the superiority of what is in the hands of the police themselves.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Prince Al-Shammari announced a plan that includes media, legal and administrative aspects, during an expanded meeting of the Supreme Committee for the Restriction of Armaments in State Hands, in the presence of governors, chief police officers and commanders of operations in the provinces.
As the Iraqi news agency “INA” reported about the meeting, the plan includes:
Opening of a database to register weapons at police stations so that the owners are not held responsible and the weapons are confiscated. Conduct searches and seizures of unregistered weapons. This concerns small arms, while the possession of medium and heavy weapons is prohibited and its owner is subject to legal liability.
Difficulty to implement
Iraqi military expert Alaa Al-Nashua is hopeful of the initiative, especially if it has internal and external support from the United States and the international counterterrorism coalition.
However, he struggles to get that support in the way he needs it. Because, in his own words, “the issue is larger than we imagine, and even the minister knows very well that the strategy he is proposing is difficult to implement for many reasons, in particular political , security and social (clan), in addition to the external influences represented by the Iranian side.”
He adds, explaining:
As for the armed factions, they have superior weapons even to the brigades and divisions of the federal police. Thus, the position of the Minister of the Interior will be embarrassing in front of him, unless he obtains American and international support to disarm these factions by force and direct threat. As for the clans, who possess light and medium weapons, and some of them heavy, I believe that the amount of what they have is unknown, and it cannot be counted; Because it has many hiding places, especially in the southern governorates where clan conflicts abound. Alongside these and those, there are drug traffickers who have weapons to protect their trade and move it across borders, and its passage through the depths. As for the western and northern regions; It is almost devoid of heavy or even medium weapons. Because the armed factions control them and prevent the presence of this level of weapons in others. So that she is not a source of threat to her, and these weapons are only found with the guards of political and security personalities. Disarmament must be preceded by broad awareness campaigns, which consolidate the concept of state sovereignty and the idea that national security is the responsibility of every citizen. If this happens, the people can cooperate with the authorities in this great task.
Since the American invasion in 2003 and the fall of the central state at the end of the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Iraq has suffered from massive chaos in the proliferation of weapons, whether in the hands of clans or in the hands of armed factions and militias that formed after the invasion, and use them to impose their program and their influence, and to fight against their adversaries among the different religious and political currents.
Read the Latest World News Today on The Eastern Herald.
