An official from the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) told Asharq Al-Awsat on Friday that the group rejects being inducted in the country’s security institutions. “We do not support merging the PMF with the Iraqi Defense and Interior ministries, because such a move would dissolve the group and we do not want this. The PMF was the main reason behind ISIS’s defeat” in Iraq, said Naeem al-Aboudi, a spokesperson of Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, a division of the PMF. At the same time, however, the official welcomed Prime Minister Haidar Abadi’s decision to give PMF members the same rights and privileges as the Iraqi armed forces. Al-Aboudi described Abadi’s decision as positive, even if it came late. “The decree aims to give similar salaries to members of the military, but does not mean merging the group into the security institutions,” he said. The spokesperson of Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, headed by Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, justified rejecting the PMF merger into the Iraqi security institutions to the persistent ISIS threat. “We have proof that the terror group is still operating in Samarra and Mosul. There are also large territories that need the fighters,” he said. The PMF was formed in 2014 in line with a fatwa by top Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Ali Sistani to combat ISIS. Al-Aboudi said that the PMF has some reservations on Abadi’s decree. “It failed to reveal the actual number of PMF fighters,” he said, adding that the forces include 140,000 fighters, while the Iraqi government only acknowledged 122,000 members. Yazan al Jabouri, a Sunni PMF commander in the Salaheddine province, told Asharq al-Awsat that Abadi should have issued his decree a year ago. “The PMF fought alongside the Iraqi security forces and therefore they need to be given the same salaries and privileges,” he added.