BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- The Al-Nujaba movement, an Iraqi anti-terror resistance group, has rejected amendments to a draft law governing the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Sha’abi, stating that “suspicious Wahhabi and Zionist hands” were behind the changes. 
In a statement released on Thursday, the movement called the amendments “unfair,” warning they would weaken the PMU, break it up, and shrink its role.
The group said the long-awaited law had been held up to appease U.S. President Donald Trump. “At a time when we have long awaited the passage of the PMU law, 

which remained suspended to appease the criminal, child-killer, foolish Trump, we are surprised by unfair amendments that we can only explain by the presence of suspicious Wahhabi and Zionist hands behind them,” the statement read.
Nujaba urged those who had held their ground to oppose the amendments. “As we reject these amendments in their entirety, we call on the honorable people who remain steadfast in their positions to take a stand of dignity, honor and rejection against these amendments that weaken, fragment and diminish the role of the Popular Mobilization Units,” it said. 
The movement added that rejecting the changes is the least it owed to the blood of the former deputy head of the PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other “righteous martyrs”. 
Muhandis was assassinated alongside top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.
The statement said Arabs, Zionists, and Americans created the Daesh terrorist group to conspire against Iraq and its holy places. It called the PMU “Iraq’s heart and backbone” and said its creed was the Islamic resistance. 
“We reaffirm our firm position rejecting these suspicious amendments, and we will accept nothing less than a fair law that protects the rights of PMU members, places them on equal footing with their brothers in the security forces, and guarantees all their current and future rights,” the movement said.
The Iraqi cabinet approved a bill on September 29 that purportedly cuts the PMU Commission’s general goals from nine to five and its tasks from 14 to eight. 
The draft also reportedly drops the commission’s volunteer service department, its department for combating ideological terrorism, and its military court of cassation. 
A committee in the office of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is apparently reworking about 20 clauses of the bill, including reorganizing the PMU into independent brigades and putting army and police officers in command posts. Chairman of the Hashd al-Sha’abi, Falih al-Fayyadh, opposes much of the restructuring.
PMU fighters played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas across Iraq. In November 2016, the Iraqi parliament approved a law giving full legal status to PMU fighters, recognizing them as part of the national armed forces, placing them under the prime minister’s command, and granting them salaries and pensions like the regular army and police.