Sulaymaniyah

Overview

Sulaymaniyah is a city in northern Iraq and one of the principal urban centers of the Kurdistan Region. It is the seat of Sulaymaniyah Governorate, which covers a much larger area than the city itself. The autonomous region also comprises Erbil, Duhok and Halabja governorates. Sulaymaniyah’s political, cultural and economic influence extends across its governorate and into neighboring parts of Kurdistan, but events reported elsewhere in the province should not automatically be treated as events within the city.

The city grew from a Baban principality capital into a center of Kurdish writing, education and political organization. It became a stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whose longstanding rivalry with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has shaped the Kurdistan Region’s institutions. Sulaymaniyah has also sheltered people displaced by Saddam Hussein’s government and later conflicts. Its position near Iran links it to cross-border commerce and exposes Kurdish opposition groups based in the governorate to pressure and attacks from the Iranian regime.

Geography

Sulaymaniyah lies in eastern Kurdistan, near Iraq’s border with Iran. Goizha Mountain rises north of the city beside Azmar Mountain. Residents visit the mountains for cooler air in summer and snow in winter. Goizha has been a cultural landmark for roughly two centuries and appears in regional literature. Sulaymaniyah Airport connects the city to destinations beyond the landlocked Kurdistan Region, although flight restrictions imposed by Turkey have periodically disrupted that connection.

The city’s wider setting gives it strategic importance. Kirkuk lies on the most direct highway between Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, making access through Kirkuk significant for travel between the region’s two main cities. Sulaymaniyah Governorate extends beyond the urban area toward other Iraqi provinces and the Iranian frontier. The Bashmagh crossing is an important point in trade with Iran: Sulaymaniyah trade officials put annual commerce between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan at $6.8 billion in 2018. That year, the Iranian regime’s consul in Sulaymaniyah announced plans for another crossing and a free trade zone near Bashmagh.

Jewish history

Sulaymaniyah once had a Jewish community and a neighborhood known as Jewlakan, or the Jewish quarter. Its history forms part of the wider history of Jews in Kurdistan. Most Jews left Iraq after the establishment of Israel. In a later visit to Jewlakan, a reporter found a house whose residents identified it as a former synagogue, illustrating the survival of traces of the community in the city’s buildings. The account did not establish how many former synagogues remained or whether buildings described in guidebooks as restored were functioning houses of worship.

Modern history

Ibrahim Pasha Baban founded Sulaymaniyah in 1784 as a new capital for the Baban principality, moving its seat from Qala Chwalan. The city subsequently developed as a center of Kurdish literature and intellectual life. That cultural role continued into modern politics: the PUK founded by Jalal Talabani drew support from Sulaymaniyah’s political and student communities. Its newspaper and television activity formed part of a broader northern Iraqi political culture in which rival parties, including Assyrian and Turkoman parties, maintained local offices and published or broadcast their views.

Saddam Hussein’s government subjected the city to political imprisonment and repression. During the 1991 Iraqi uprisings, residents overran Sulaymaniyah’s Iraqi security prison and captured official documents showing that security forces used rape during interrogations. The former Red Security Prison, known as Amna Suraka, later became a museum. Its preserved detention and execution spaces commemorate victims of the regime, including people held during the Anfal campaign. The prison’s history remains a central part of the city’s public memory.

Sulaymaniyah also received people expelled from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein’s government. That government seized their property and transferred it to Ba’ath Party functionaries; hundreds of the expelled found shelter in a tent city outside Sulaymaniyah. Following the 1991 uprising, Kurdish authorities administered northern areas outside Saddam’s effective control. Under the United Nations oil-sale arrangements, local Kurdish authorities and the United Nations directed proceeds toward supplies and projects there, while Saddam controlled spending elsewhere in Iraq.

A 2001 account described Sulaymaniyah’s Azad and Shara pharmacies as stocked with medicines and its shops as supplied with food, despite the international sanctions that also applied elsewhere in Iraq. The contrast showed how control of oil revenue and distribution affected conditions under the same sanctions. That account estimated the city’s population at approximately 500,000 at the time; the figure should not be read as a present-day count.

The PUK generally led Sulaymaniyah while the KDP historically governed Erbil and Duhok. Rivalry also arose within Sulaymaniyah’s own political base. Nawshirwan Mustafa’s Change List, also known as Gorran, emerged as a major opposition force, winning an estimated 25–27 seats in the Kurdistan Region’s parliament and a majority of the popular vote in Sulaymaniyah in a regional election. In October 2015, protesters attacked KDP offices in Sulaymaniyah Governorate; at least five KDP supporters and protesters died. Turnout in Sulaymaniyah was below the Kurdistan Region’s overall rate of about 72 percent in the 2024 regional election, amid continuing dissatisfaction and division within the PUK.

Party rivalry also affected relations with Baghdad. A reported 2017 agreement involving Bafel Talabani provided for renewed Sulaymaniyah Airport flights and Iraqi government salary transfers to employees in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk. Bafel was to prepare lists for payments to Peshmerga fighters in Sulaymaniyah. These arrangements tied the city’s transport and public-sector finances to negotiations over authority between Kurdish and Iraqi institutions.

Security

Sulaymaniyah is a center of Kurdish security operations against the Islamic State, a terrorist organization. In April 2021, Kurdish special forces announced that they had captured 22 people suspected of Islamic State activity in Sulaymaniyah Province during the preceding three months. The detainees included Ali al-Jamili, identified as the group’s commander for the Fallujah area. In April 2022, security forces arrested three Islamic State suicide bombers in Sulaymaniyah after they had arrived from Syria to carry out an operation in Baghdad.

Arrests of Islamic State operatives rose sharply across Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Kirkuk during a three-year period examined in a regional security analysis. The increase coincided with stronger coordination between Kurdish authorities and Baghdad after deadly attacks on Peshmerga and civilians in late 2021. Iraq’s counterterrorism chief visited Sulaymaniyah on January 9, 2022. The Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraqi Army also formed an 8,000-fighter joint force to protect areas between Sulaymaniyah and Diyala provinces. These operations show the city’s role in security cooperation extending beyond its own governorate.

Relations with Turkey have been strained by the PUK’s contacts with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). After the PKK kidnapped two Turkish intelligence agents in Sulaymaniyah in August 2017, Turkey closed the PUK’s Ankara office and expelled its longtime representative Bahruz Galali. Turkey later extended restrictions on Sulaymaniyah flights, citing PUK support for PKK activity. The Ankara–Sulaymaniyah route reopened in October 2018 after Qubad Talabani closed the PKK’s political office in the city, though other flight restrictions continued.

Turkey again closed its airspace to aircraft arriving from or departing Sulaymaniyah Governorate in 2023, citing increased PKK activity in the city and airport. Bafel Talabani’s contacts with SDF leaders had further strained relations with Ankara. Soon after the closure, a drone strike near Sulaymaniyah Airport targeted a convoy carrying SDF commander Mazloum Abdi and three U.S. military personnel. The strike’s location underscored the airport’s importance to regional security as well as civilian travel.

Security disputes within the PUK have had local consequences. Sulaymaniyah’s judiciary issued arrest warrants for Bafel’s rival Lahur and two of Lahur’s brothers, including Polad Talabani, a former counterterrorism unit head. Bafel’s allies Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa and Kosrat Rasul Ali controlled many party-affiliated Peshmerga forces in the area. Following separate reported killings in July 2024, authorities arrested two off-duty members of a PUK-affiliated commando force. PUK leaders pledged legal accountability and said Sulaymaniyah’s civilian authorities, rather than a military court, would determine any punishment.

Present day

Sulaymaniyah remains a destination for displaced people. Its governorate was among Iraq’s principal locations for internally displaced people in September 2022, following earlier waves of displacement that had brought people from Kirkuk and elsewhere. The area also has minority communities. Members of the Kavkaz community, encompassing Circassians, Chechens and Dagestanis, live in Sulaymaniyah Governorate alongside members of other Iraqi communities. National estimates for these groups do not establish their population within the city itself.

Iranian Kurdish opposition parties have maintained bases in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, including branches of Komala associated with Ibrahim Alizadeh and Abdullah Mohtadi. After a September 2023 agreement, opposition parties based in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, apart from PJAK, largely moved armed personnel away from the Iraq–Iran border. The Iranian regime has nevertheless continued to exert pressure across the frontier. Strikes on Erbil and Sulaymaniyah provinces on March 7–8, 2026, killed two people and wounded others. During March 28–April 1 attacks, drones targeted Komala positions and the former United Nations headquarters in Sulaymaniyah; the former headquarters sustained structural damage, while air defenses intercepted drones aimed at Kurdish Peshmerga positions. On April 16, missiles struck Komala headquarters in Zirgewez, within Sulaymaniyah Governorate, and the Kurdistan Revolutionary Party’s headquarters in Sulaymaniyah.

Public debate over Goizha Mountain concerns the city’s cultural landscape and access to it. Qaiwan Group, a developer with strong PUK ties, expanded residential construction from Goizha’s foothills farther up the mountain. A large project overlooking Sulaymaniyah prompted weeks of opposition over its effects on biodiversity, the environment and a historic landmark. Residents feared that private development would further restrict access to Goizha and neighboring Azmar. PUK facilities near the mountains, including Bafel Talabani’s headquarters and the party-affiliated Kurdsat network, had already limited access to parts of the area. The dispute placed preservation of a shared landmark and public access at the center of Sulaymaniyah’s urban development debate.