Shafaq News- al-Anbar

The head of the al-Anbar Provincial Council said on Tuesday that a decision by neighboring Babil province to bring several districts of al-Anbar within its own boundaries violates official state maps and Iraqi law, and that the council has taken legal and administrative steps to stop it.

The contested land lies within al-Amiriya district in al-Anbar, Iraq's largest province, which borders both Babil and Karbala. Recent official correspondence revealed Babil's move to detach three areas —Al-Ujair, Al-Batra and Al-Sukhairiya— and place them under its jurisdiction.

Speaking at a press conference, Hamid Daham Al-Alwani said the areas Babil's provincial council voted to annex do not match the maps approved by Iraq's Ministry of Planning. “They are agricultural land held under active farming contracts and usufruct rights recognized by Iraqi law.”

The council has formally written to Babil's provincial council to demand the decision be revoked and the matter resolved through legal channels, Al-Alwani said, adding that al-Anbar would keep pursuing the issue with the relevant federal authorities to protect the province's administrative boundaries and the rights of its residents.

Al-Anbar was previously at the center of a similar contest over al-Nukhaib district, which it claims and was the subject of attempts to attach it to Karbala in 2003. Comparable disagreements have recurred elsewhere, including between the provinces of Diyala and Saladin.

A separate and longer-running category of dispute exists between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq. For years the two sides have contested territory across several provinces inhabited by a mix of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other communities of different faiths. These disputed areas include Kirkuk, north of Baghdad; the districts of Sinjar, al-Shaykhan and al-Hamdaniya and the sub-districts of Bashiqa and al-Qahtaniya in Nineveh province; the district of Khanaqin and its sub-districts, along with Baladruz, in Diyala; and the district of Badra and the sub-district of Jassan in Wasit.