Karbala farmland seized for commercial projects, ex-MP claims

Shafaq News – Karbala

Influential officials in Iraq’s National Investment Commission and figures linked to the prime minister’s office have seized agricultural land in Karbala for commercial projects, a former lawmaker alleged on Thursday.

Ibtisam Al-Hilali, a former member of parliament’s agriculture and water committee, told Shafaq News that these groups took over wide areas of farmland in the province, arguing that clearing the plots aims to weaken local production and increase reliance on imported crops.

The former MP said the groups involved had reclassified several plots from agricultural to residential and built large housing complexes sold at inflated prices, urging outgoing Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to visit Karbala and order an immediate investigation into what she described as a practice that has become one of the main threats to urban farming across Iraq.

Iraq has been tightening land-use controls as farmland across several provinces continues to disappear under legal and illegal development, a trend officials and experts warn is eroding domestic food production and accelerating environmental degradation.

Read more: Iraq’s green decline: Can new laws and trees reverse it?