New Iraq military command sparks further tensions with Kurds

Iraq’s Kurdish military leaders and their federal counterparts agreed on 26 November to try to defuse a growing crisis in northern Iraq sparked by Baghdad’s establishment of a new military command covering territory the Kurds think should be theirs. The Kurds see the Dijla (Tigris) Operations Command, which covers parts of Kirkuk, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces, as a threat to their control of oil-rich lands around the border between federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) region.