Khānaqīn

Khānaqīn, city, northeastern Iraq. Located 5 miles (8 km) from the Iranian border at a rail terminus, Khānaqīn is a customs station and is situated on a main road used by Iranian Muslims on pilgrimages to Iraqi and Arabian holy cities. The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) resulted in temporary closure of the border, and many of the city’s residents were displaced by the fighting. Khānaqīn lies in a fertile and intensively cultivated area along the Alwand River and serves as a local trade centre for agricultural produce and livestock. There is an oil field nearby, and a refinery is located at Alwand, 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Khānaqīn. During Ṣaddām Ḥussein’s rule (1979–2003), Khānaqīn and other cities in and near Iraq’s Kurdish region were targeted by his policy of “Arabization” (the forced relocation of ethnic Kurds). After he was deposed in the early days of the Iraq War in 2003, however, the city’s population swelled dramatically with the return of thousands of internally displaced persons. The status of Khānaqīn proved to be a point of contention between the central Iraqi government and local Kurdish officials, and in 2008 Iraqi security forces deployed to the city as a show of force. Pop. (2007 est.) 175,000.