ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Media affiliated with Iraq’s pro-Iran Harakat al-Nujaba said Tuesday that the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) released the group’s intelligence director after Iraqi counterterrorism forces reportedly arrested him and transferred him to the PMF to await legal proceedings.

A security source on Monday told The New Region on condition of anonymity that Iraqi counterterrorism forces detained Abbas Hussein Matar at his home in Dhi Qar province’s al-Fadhiliya district before transferring him to Baghdad to await legal proceedings.

The PMF’s media office said in a statement that Matar was handed over to the PMF “to proceed with his legal case before the judiciary.”

However, Nujaba’s media office told The New Region that the PMF had released him.

This comes 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 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 Nujaba told The New Region, "We believe that restricting weapons to the state in this manner serves external American, Zionist, Western, and Gulf demands” and that they are “an ally” of Tehran and “ an active part” of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of pro-Iran militia groups.

"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, 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 Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (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."