ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The all-Yazidi Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) on Monday announced that 4,165 of their fighters will integrate into the Iraqi security apparatus, supporting Baghdad’s broader efforts to consolidate weapons to the state ahead of an official ceremony to integrate the force. 

The YBS and its all-women branch, the Sinjar Women's Units (YJS), announced an agreement with Baghdad to integrate 4,165 fighters into the state. 

Under the agreement, Baghdad must address the aftermath of the Yazidi genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS). This includes finding missing people, pursuing justice for victims' families, supporting the return of displaced people, and reconstructing Sinjar, according to the YBS. 

The YBS is an all-Yazidi armed group operating in the vicinity of Sinjar that is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The force significantly expanded in 2014 with the PKK’s support and played a crucial role in driving out ISIS from Sinjar.

ISIS swept across vast swathes of Iraq in 2014, establishing a so-called “caliphate” with the northern city of Mosul as its capital. During its brutal reign, the group committed heinous atrocities against Iraq’s minorities, especially the Yazidi ethnoreligious community.

The campaign against the Yazidis included mass killings, abductions, genocidal rape, and forced conversions. Over 5,000 Yazidis were killed in the ISIS campaign, and some 6,000 others were abducted and sold into sexual slavery. Thousands remain missing.

“The success of this agreement requires a serious implementation of its terms,” the YBS said.

The YBS is set to integrate into Iraq’s state institutions in an official ceremony in the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar on Monday. During the ceremony, security responsibility for Mount Sinjar will be transferred to Baghdad, according to the spokesperson for the prime minister.

The integration comes amid Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s agenda of consolidating arms to the state, one of his government’s main objectives.

Iraq’s Security Media Cell further confirmed that the integration will also include the force’s “weapons and military sites.”

“We affirm that our sacrifices were not made for the sake of arms themselves, but for the sake of humanity, the land, dignity, and life,” the YBS said, adding: “We fulfilled our duty on the battlefields, and today we continue to uphold our responsibilities in a new phase.”

Zaidi’s government had also set September 30 as the deadline for armed groups to hand over their weapons, coinciding with the US-led anti-ISIS coalition’s withdrawal, but later shifted to a phased process extending into 2027 after several Iran-aligned groups rejected the deadline.

The rejection from multiple pro-Iran factions led Baghdad to seek other mechanisms to regulate the factions’ weapons in a manner that would be acceptable to the groups.