Iraq to collect 6 million weapons despite pushback from Iran-backed militias

Iraq's government is pressing ahead with a plan to collect an estimated 6 million weapons held outside official institutions, the Interior Ministry said, even as Baghdad quietly retreated from a September 30 deadline that had been set for armed factions to surrender their arsenals. Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Hussein al-Awadi said the government was treating 30 September — originally set as a hard deadline for factions to hand over weapons, timed to coincide with the final withdrawal of US-led coalition forces — as the start of a regulatory process rather than a completion point. A four-member committee including Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and former Premier Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is working on a revised mechanism.