ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The intelligence director of Harakat al-Nujaba, a pro-Iran Iraqi militia, was arrested in Dhi Qar province by Iraqi counterterrorism forces, a security source told The New Region on Monday.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service (ICTS) detained Abbas Hussein Matar at his home in the Al-Fadhiliya district before being transferred to Baghdad to await legal proceedings.

Matar served as the intelligence chief for the armed group and was termed by the source to be a "prominent" figure within the pro-Iran faction, coming as the Iraqi government under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has made clear its intention to disarm actors operating outside of state authority.

Since assuming office, Zaidi has issued an end-of-September deadline by which all armed groups must hand over their weapons to the state. While several factions have accepted the initiative and expressed a willingness to separate from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella of militias that is nominally under Baghdad's authority but contains many groups intimately linked to Iran, Harakat al-Nujaba has explicitly rejected the disarmament call.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the group told The New Region, "We believe that restricting weapons to the state in this manner serves external American, Zionist, Western, and Gulf demands."

"The Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba is an active part of the Islamic Resistance axis and an ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the other countries in the axis that reject the American and Western occupation and influence in Iraq and the region."

"We reiterate that we will not surrender our weapons, as they are the instrument that has protected and continues to protect the Iraqi people from aggression," they concluded.

Repeated attacks on energy infrastructure within Iraq and neighboring countries orchestrated by Iraqi militias operating at the behest of Iran have caused Baghdad to suffer economically and face diplomatic embarrassment, culminating in joint US-Saudi airstrikes on PMF bases across the country on July 29.

Responding to the attacks, which killed at least 20 PMF fighters, subsequently, Harakat al-Nujaba said they "will not allow the tyrants of Washington and the Saudi Arabs to defile the land of Iraq without exacting a heavy price from them in terms of their interests and security."

In early August, Zaidi visited the ICTS headquarters in Baghdad and directed Iraqi security agencies to "enforce the law, enhance security and stability, and fulfill their responsibilities in protecting sovereignty and maintaining good neighborly relations."