ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A dispute over the application of Iraq’s Article 140 has once again resulted in disagreements over security control and property rights coming to the fore in Nineveh province, after a parliamentary investigation accused the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Brigade 30 of illegally preventing landowners from building near Mosul and called for security responsibilities to be transferred to the police.
“We invited the director of Mosul Municipality to a meeting of the council, and documents proved that the lands of Qara Fakhra and Jiliokhan fall within Mosul Municipality’s master plan and have nothing to do with Hamdaniya or Article 140,” Ahmed Dubardani, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Rudaw’s Malik Mahmoud on Sunday.
The dispute centers on land in Qara Fakhra and Jiliokhan, where residents holding property deeds have been prevented from constructing homes. A parliamentary investigation concluded that the plots fall within Mosul’s municipal boundaries and that the Brigade 30 (known as the Shabak brigade) checkpoints have unlawfully restricted access to them.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution envisaged the three-stage process of normalization, census and referendum to determine the administrative status of Kirkuk and other territories disputed between Baghdad and Erbil.
Although the process was supposed to conclude by the end of 2007, it remains largely unimplemented. The latest dispute highlights how the constitutional article is being invoked to restrict development in areas whose disputed status is itself contested.
In a letter dated August 19, Hadi al-Amiri, head of Iraq’s Higher Committee for the Implementation of Article 140, warned Nineveh authorities against taking administrative measures in disputed territories without consulting the committee.
“The decisions of the Article 140 implementation committee are constitutionally binding on all parties and must not be violated,” Amiri wrote, adding that any administrative measure resulting in demographic changes in disputed territories would be considered invalid.
Amiri is the head of the PMF-affiliated Badr Organization.
The letter identified several districts and subdistricts of Nineveh as disputed territories, including Shingal (Sinjar), Tel Kaif, Makhmour and Bashiqa.
However, Dubardani argued that Amiri’s intervention was directed at the provincial council’s decision to allow construction in Qara Fakhra and Jiliokhan.
Amiri’s letter was “a response to the Nineveh provincial council’s decision granting the owners of title deeds in Qara Fakhra and Jiliokhan the right to build,” he said.
According to Dubardani, Kurdish Shabak lawmaker Waad Qado, Brigade 30 commander as well, had previously filed a lawsuit with Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, arguing that the lands belonged to Bartalla and Hamdaniya and consequently fell under Article 140. The court dismissed the case, he said.
Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court in early September dismissed the lawsuit filed by four current and former lawmakers representing the Shabak, Kakayi, Yazidi and Christian communities against the Nineveh governor and provincial council head.
The plaintiffs, including Qado, challenged the constitutionality of provincial council Resolution No. 168 of 2026, which approved recommendations concerning residential plots whose owners possess official title deeds but have been prevented from building on them.
The court dismissed the case, on jurisdictional grounds, issuing a final and binding decision. The court’s decision, however, wasn’t a ruling on the constitutionality of the council’s decision itself or the underlying land dispute.
Qado was identified by the US Treasury as the leader of Brigade 30 when Washington sanctioned him in July 2019 over serious human rights abuses attributed to the militia, including extortion, illegal arrests and intimidation in the Nineveh Plain.
The Iraqi parliamentary investigation, established in late April after complaints from landowners, examined land registration documents and consulted municipal and urban planning authorities.
Its findings challenged the justification for the construction restrictions, concluding that the lands had been distributed legally to citizens from different communities over several decades.
The investigation also found that Brigade 30 personnel had prevented landowners from accessing their properties and obstructed a road-paving project in Jiliokhan, forcing authorities to relocate it.
In late October, Iraq’s parliament approved the committee’s recommendations, calling on the commander-in-chief of the armed forces to transfer responsibility for security in Jiliokhan, Qara Fakhra and other areas within Mosul’s municipal boundaries to the interior ministry’s local police.
Lawmakers also demanded that security forces, specifically Brigade 30, stop issuing or enforcing orders preventing construction or restricting property rights without a legal basis.
The committee cited Article 23 of the Iraqi constitution, which protects private property, and maintained that the distribution of land to different communities did not constitute unlawful demographic change.
It further recommended removing security barriers established during the Islamic State (ISIS) era within 30 days and urged the Federal Commission of Integrity to investigate allegations of abuse of authority, discrimination and extortion.
The parliamentary recommendations challenge the restrictions imposed by Brigade 30, but their implementation remains dependent on government action. The Council of Ministers has been asked to report back to the investigative committee within 30 days.
