Iranians in Iraq

Iranians in Iraq (Persian: ایرانیان در عراق, Arabic: الإيرانيون في العراق), are Iraqi citizens of Iranian background. Iranians have had a long presence in Iraq, going back to the Fall of Babylon.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Iranians took refuge in Ottoman Iraq and lived in exile in cities such as Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Saddam Hussein exiled between 350,000^[3][4][5] to 650,000 Iraqi citizens of Iranian ancestry.^[1] Most of them went to Iran. Most could prove their Iranian ancestry in Iranian courts and therefore received Iranian citizenships (400,000). Following Saddam's fall, some returned to Iraq.^[1] The population of Iraqis of Iranian descent is currently 486,000 (not including Iranian residents in Iraq).

During the Iran–Iraq War, thousands of Iranian Kurds fled to Iraq. They included both civilians displaced from border areas and members of Iranian Kurdish opposition organisations, particularly KDPI.^[6] In 1982, the refugees were transferred to Al-Tash, a state-run camp in Iraq's Al Anbar Governorate, about 145 km west of Baghdad. UNHCR later reported that roughly 12,000 Iranian Kurds remained there for over 20 years. Members of this refugee population were granted neither Iraqi citizenship nor did they possess Iranian passports.^[6]

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, worsening living and security conditions led around 3,200 Al-Tash refugees to move to the Sulaymaniyah Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where local authorities, UNHCR, and other agencies helped them resettle. Those who left the camp settled either in rented housing or in the Kawa and Barika refugee camps.^[6]

Iranian authorities are active in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), where they monitor people of Iranian Kurdish background in a range of fields, including journalists, human rights activists, lecturers, researchers, and teachers. Many radio and television stations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq employ Iranians who work both for Iranian and KRI authorities. These individuals are said to pass information to both sides about the activities of Kurdish political parties, as part of a broad Iranian intelligence network operating in the region.^[6]

• Kazim Rashti (1793-1843), Shaykhi scholar
• Ali Muhammad Khan Nizam ud-Daula (1807-1853) son of Hajji Mohammad Hossein Isfahani, scholar who fled Iran, lived, died and buried in exile in Najaf.
• Princess Shams ud-Daula Qajar, daughter of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar and wife of Ali Muhammad Khan Nizam ud-Daula.
• Abulqasim Khan Qarai (died before 1916), son of Muhammad Khan Qarai, wealthy land owner who fled Mashhad in 1887 and lived in exile in Karbala. He feared for his life when his properties were unlawfully seized by Abdul Wahab Khan Asaf ud-Daula Shirazi.
• Ali al-Sistani (1930-), Shia religious leader born in Mashhad and ancestry from Sistan.

• Iran–Iraq relations
• Iranian diaspora
• Iraqis in Iran
• Moaved
• Medes
• Achaemenid Assyria
• Asuristan
• Parthian Empire
• Baghdad province (Safavid Empire)
• Feyli (tribe)

• "History – Faili Kurds Association". failykurds.org. Retrieved 2024-12-04.

[[Category:Iranian diaspora in the Middle East|Iraq]