BAGHDAD — The Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee raised alarm bells Sept. 7 about the political crisis rocking Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, which stretches to the Iranian border. It warned that the Islamic State (IS) could stage a comeback in some liberated areas due to the ethnic, sectarian and political conflict in the province. Diyala province has a population of some 1.27 million people, including a majority of Arabs who are more or less equally divided between Sunni and Shiite, followed by Kurds and Turkmens.

As if to underline the prospect of an ethnic conflict, 100 fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) on Sept. 10 took over the municipality headquarters of Mandali and forcibly lowered the Kurdish flag.

The mix of sects and national groups in Diyala “has placed it in the vortex of ongoing conflict since 2003,” Mohammed al-Khalidi, a member and former speaker of the Iraqi parliament, told Al-Monitor. “The province’s geographical position on the Iranian border adds to its political polarization and makes it likely the Shiite forces there will be attacked.”

Khalidi continued, “The fact that the province adjoins the Kurdish region adds to the Kurdish influence and there are efforts to further strengthen this, while the Sunni Arabs believe they have the right to run the province as they see themselves as the majority both historically and today.”