The town, which falls on the dividing line between the Kurdistan Region province of Sulaimani and the federal province of Diyala, has long been the source of bitter ethnic dispute between Arab and Kurdish residents who claim it as their own.
These tensions flared anew after Iraqi forces pushed the Peshmerga out of the town in October 2017.
“It is no secret that the hands of terrorism and some unknown parties tamper with the security and stability of Khanaqin and surrounding villages, seeking to harm people and farmers of the region,” a statement released by Kurdistani factions in the Iraqi parliament stated Saturday.
“As a result of these criminal actions, 40 people and members of security forces have been martyred” since the October 2017 events, it said.
“Terrorists” have not only killed people but also “burned the crops of farmers and contaminated their land with mines and IEDs,” or improvised explosive devices, it added.
Four people, including a local teacher, have been killed in just the last week, the MPs claimed.
The statement condemned these “criminal actions and the malicious conspiracy which targets coexistence and stability of the city,” and called on the Iraqi prime minister, president, and other relevant authorities to “take necessary measures to end this atrocity”.
Speaking to Rudaw English on Saturday, Mohammed Mala Hasan, the mayor of Khanaqin, said: “There is a security vacuum in the town, which has paved the way for terrorists to burn peoples’ crops.”
Sherwan Qadir, a Kurdish MP in the Baghdad parliament, who also spoke to Rudaw English, said groups acting “under the name” of the Islamic State group (ISIS) are responsible for burning crops and stoking tensions in the town.
Kurdish communities living in disputed areas say their farms have been burned and their crops stolen in land disputes with Arab settlers.
Land disputes between Kurdish and Arab residents resurfaced after the federal takeover of these areas in the wake of the Kurdistan independence referendum in September 2017.
Disputed areas like Khanaqin and Kirkuk are claimed by both the federal and regional governments. Their future hinges on the implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which is designed to solve the dispute by referendum.
On May 13, the ISIS-affiliated Amaq News Agency said the group had burned farmland belonging to Riyath al-Tami, a leader of the Sunni Hashd al-Ashayeri, in southern Bahrz, Diyala province.
The Sunni tribal forces known as Hashd al-Ahsairi are mostly found in Anbar, Nineveh, and Saladin provinces. They technically fall under the command of the primarily Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi and are part of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF).
ISIS cells hiding out in the Qarachogh Mountains of Makhmour have also recently torched local crop fields after farmers refused to pay the militants taxes. Farmers say they could be forced to leave if security does not improve.
