Iraqi cleric urges Shia militia to return their weapons to the Iraqi military

AP:
An influential Iraqi Shiite cleric on Monday urged his fighters to hand state-issued weapons back to the government, following Iraq’s declaration of victory against the Islamic State group.

In a speech broadcast on Iraqi television, Muqtada al-Sadr also called on his forces to hand over some territory to other branches of Iraq’s security forces, but said his men would continue to guard a holy Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Al-Sadr commands one of several mostly Shiite militias that mobilized after IS militants swept across northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014. The paramilitaries are state-sanctioned and officially under the command of the prime minister, but have their own chains of command.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over IS in a national address on Saturday, after Iraqi forces drove the militants from their last strongholds in the western desert.
...
This is somewhat surprising and raises interesting questions about the future of Iranian influence in Iraq.  The Iraqi leadership has to know that they could not have defeated ISIS without significant help from the US military.  That they would acknowledge it would be a bigger shock.

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