Shafaq News<\/p>\n
Jurf al-Sakhr, a largely depopulated
\nfarming district in northern Babil province, has returned to the center of
\nIraqi politics as Baghdad presses armed groups to place their weapons under
\nstate control before a September 30 deadline. More than a decade after it was
\nretaken from ISIS and renamed Jurf al-Nasr, the district\u2019s residents are still
\ndisplaced, and parts of the district remain under the control of factions
\nwithin the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the state-linked, mostly Shia
\nnetwork of armed groups formed to fight ISIS in 2014.<\/p>\n
The dispute now runs on two tracks
\nat once. One is humanitarian: thousands of families who fled a decade ago have
\nnever been allowed home. The other is strategic: the same closed zone has been
\nnamed in successive official reports as a base for armed factions and a target
\nof foreign airstrikes. <\/p>\n
A Strategic Pocket South Of Baghdad<\/p>\n
Jurf al-Sakhr sits roughly 60
\nkilometers southwest of Baghdad and about 13 kilometers north of the town of
\nal-Musayyib. Its orchards, irrigation drains, and waterlogged flats are hard to
\npolice, and it straddles routes linking the capital to central and southern
\nIraq, including the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, and to Al-Anbar
\nprovince in the west.<\/p>\n
That geography made the area a
\nsecurity problem long before ISIS. After the 2003 US-led invasion, the district
\nfell inside what Iraqi forces called the Triangle of Death, the farming belt
\ndirectly south of Baghdad, taking in Mahmoudiyah, Latifiyah, and Yusufiyah and
\nreaching Iskandariya and Jurf al-Sakhr, where al-Qaeda and other armed groups
\nexploited the terrain during the sectarian war. The same name is now also used
\nfor a separate northern zone across Diyala, Kirkuk, and Saladin provinces. <\/p>\n
When ISIS swept through in 2014,
\nJurf al-Sakhr became one of its footholds in northern Babil, and displacement
\nbegan even before the fight to retake it; the Iraqi Red Crescent Society
\nreported in May 2014 that roughly 900 families had already fled areas tied to
\nthe district.<\/p>\n
From Battlefield To Sealed Zone<\/p>\n
The turning point came that autumn.
\nAn operation known as the Ashura offensive began on October 23, 2014, drawing
\nIraqi forces and PMF factions, and the district was retaken within days. Iraqi
\nauthorities argued at the time that leaving ISIS in place there would have
\nthreatened the approaches to Karbala, Najaf, and Babil.<\/p>\n
Recapture did not reopen it. The
\nforces and factions that fought there stayed, and Jurf al-Sakhr hardened into a
\nclosed military zone where the armed factions maintained a dominant security
\npresence. Several groups controlled it in the early years, among them Kataib
\nHezbollah, one of the most powerful Iran-aligned factions inside the PMF.<\/p>\n
Hassan Fad’am, a former member of
\nparliament for Babil and a leader in the al-Hikma movement of Ammar al-Hakim, a
\nShia political bloc that maintains no armed factions, says more than 70 percent
\nof residents left during ISIS rule rather than after liberation, and that
\ntroops who entered afterward found the district “fully mined and
\nbooby-trapped.” Clearing it, he argues, would require extensive technical
\nwork and government resources, and the case should not become a sectarian or
\npolitical weapon. Residents and opponents of the factions counter that a
\nclosure now approaching twelve years exceeded any demining rationale and became
\na permanent military and political fact.<\/p>\n
Read more: Days to disarm Iraq’s factions: deadline or negotiable ceiling?<\/a><\/p>\n Twelve Years Of Displacement<\/p>\n Government figures over the past two For those still out, the loss Read more: What happens to Iraq’s armed factions after September 30?<\/a><\/p>\n A Wider Map Of Areas Outside State Security sources describe Jurf In Iraqi commentary, these places Senior Sunni politicians have Read more: Iraq’s September deadline undercuts armed factions’ case for weapons<\/a><\/p>\n A Site Linked To Weapons And Strikes<\/p>\n What sets Jurf al-Sakhr apart from The district has also been struck A Symbol In Iraq’s Sectarian Over the years, the district has That accusation is what makes the \u201cYears in the camps have bred a deep Read more: Jurf Al-Sakhar: A decade on, Iraq’s displaced still barred from return<\/a><\/p>\n The Government’s Next Move<\/p>\n The latest return to prominence is Against that backdrop, a government The competing readings persist. Security expert Sarmad al-Bayati For now, any path toward resolving Written and edited by Shafaq News
\nyears show the displacement crisis remains, though the numbers shift with each
\nregistration cycle. Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement said in May
\n2024 that about 6,000 displaced families from Jurf al-Sakhr had yet to return.<\/p>\n
\nextends beyond housing. Political researcher Abdul Qader al-Nayel says some
\nresidents have spent close to a decade in displacement camps, pointing to the
\nBzeibez camp in Al-Anbar province, which he estimates now holds between 1,360
\nand 1,400 families. Most were farmers, he notes, and many now depend on aid
\nafter losing their land<\/a> and orchards, with years of displacement taking a
\ngrowing toll on families and children’s access to basic services.<\/p>\n
\nControl<\/p>\n
\nal-Sakhr as one of several areas where the state’s authority remains limited.
\nOne source told Shafaq News that close to 20 armed groups and factions hold
\nterritory where the army and police are kept out, and security cordons are
\nimposed by the factions themselves. Another source pointed to weapons workshops
\nand depots inside several of them, said to hold drones and Iranian medium- and
\nlong-range missiles, along with unofficial prisons and detention sites.<\/p>\n
\nare often called the depopulated, or “dark,” cities. Their combined
\npre-displacement population, according to figures provided by the security
\nsource, is put at around 1.25 million people, almost all Sunni, now spread
\nacross 13 camps in Al-Anbar, the outskirts of Baghdad, Saladin, and Nineveh,
\nand across Erbil, Al-Sulaymaniyah, and Duhok in the Kurdistan Region. Together,
\nthe zones cover more than 3,000 square kilometers. Besides Jurf al-Sakhr, they
\ninclude parts of al-Musayyib and the area east of Latifiyah in northern Babil;
\nal-Awja, and the outskirts of Tikrit in Saladin; and stretches of Al-Anbar and
\nNineveh that run to the Syrian border.<\/p>\n
\ndescribed Jurf al-Sakhr in blunt terms. Muhammad al-Halbousi, head of Taqadum,
\nthe largest Sunni party, called it a camp for the armed factions that \u201cno one
\nis able to enter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nother cases of post-ISIS displacement is the military activity reported inside
\nit. In 2018, Reuters reported, citing Iranian officials and Iraqi and Western
\nintelligence sources, that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles to
\nIraq and named the district among sites said to be used for storage. Later
\nreports pointed to workshops said to be developing missiles and drones, claims
\nthat have deepened the secrecy around the area without independent
\nconfirmation.<\/p>\n
\nrepeatedly. Sites inside it were hit in a US strike in January 2024, and again
\non July 30, 2024, when the PMF Commission said four of its members were killed
\nin three strikes on one of its positions; Washington described that strike as
\ndefensive, launched after it detected preparations for an attack on US forces.
\nTwo further rounds of airstrikes hit PMF sites in the district on February 28
\nand March<\/a> 31, 2026; reports attributed those to the United States and Israel,
\nthough neither formally claimed responsibility.<\/p>\n
\nPolitics<\/p>\n
\nbecome shorthand for Iraq’s wider Sunni-Shia and state-versus-faction disputes.
\nIn 2017, the Babil provincial council voted to pursue political actors who
\ndemanded the return of the displaced, while Sunni politicians kept pressing for
\nit. In April 2023, the head of the Sunni-led Sovereignty Alliance (Al-Siyada),
\nKhamis al-Khanjar, declared, “We will pray in Jurf soon,” a reference
\nto the residents’ return that drew a sharp rejection from faction leaders, who
\nwarned against readmitting people they accuse of ISIS ties.<\/p>\n
\nissue so combustible, since almost any statement about Jurf al-Sakhr can be
\nread along sectarian lines. Fad’am warns against turning it into a sectarian,
\npolitical, or media issue, arguing that such framing has itself blocked
\nreturns. <\/p>\n
\nsense of grievance and weakened residents’ trust in the state, making
\nreconciliation harder the longer it lasts,\u201d Al-Nayel adds.<\/p>\n
\ntied directly to Baghdad’s push for a state monopoly on weapons. The government
\nof Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who took office in May 2026 backed by the State
\nAdministration Coalition, a grouping of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish parties, and
\nwith US support, has set September 30 as the deadline for armed groups to bring
\ntheir weapons under state control, a date that also marks the scheduled end of
\nthe US-led coalition’s mission in Iraq. Government spokesman Haidar al-Aboudi
\nhas said any weapons outside state institutions after that date will be treated
\nunder the law, including counter-terrorism law<\/a>. Kataib Hezbollah is among the
\nfactions that have tied the future of their weapons to the withdrawal of
\nforeign forces.<\/p>\n
\ncommittee grouping the interior, justice, and agriculture ministries with the
\nPMF Commission has begun fieldwork in Jurf al-Sakhr, where Kataib Hezbollah
\ncontrols security in parts of the area. The broader plan relies on restricting
\naccess to sensitive sites rather than conducting direct raids, in an effort to
\navoid armed confrontation.<\/p>\n
\nBabil provincial council member Mohammed al-Mansouri frames the question not as
\na choice between reopening the district and keeping it closed, but as a duty to
\nreturn residents while safeguarding the province, noting that Babil has
\npreviously been attacked from areas near the district. <\/p>\n
\nargues the issue has been left unresolved so long that it has taken \u201con the
\nquality of a myth, thickened by years of political and media claims,\u201d and says
\nany settlement must begin by bringing the federal government, the security
\nservices, the factions, and the residents to one table to fix the area’s legal
\nand security status before mapping a route home.<\/p>\n
\nJurf al-Sakhr runs through the committee’s work and the Sept. 30 deadline,
\nafter which al-Aboudi says weapons held outside state control will be subject
\nto legal action.<\/p>\n
\nstaff. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shafaq News Jurf al-Sakhr, a largely depopulated farming district in northern Babil province, has returned to the center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[14113,4563,5590,94,5367,70266],"class_list":["post-254183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-armed-factions","tag-babil","tag-disarmament","tag-iraq","tag-jurf-al-sakhr","tag-jurf-al-sakhr-and-iraqs-push-to-disarm-factions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117116071024061379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}