Zakho

Joint forces headquarters in Zakho, 1993

Due to its strategic location and the abundance of job opportunities, Zakho has attracted many workers and job seekers from different parts of Iraq and even from Syria and Turkey. Trade with Turkey is now the major element of the economy.[11] Oil drilling began in 2005.[12]

In Islamic history it is perhaps best remembered as the location of the Battle of the Zab between the Umayyads and the Abbasids.

The river forms the approximate political boundary of Kurdistan Regional Government area of Iraq today. Its sister, the Little (or Lower) Zab rises in north-western part of Kurdistan province Iran, in the north of Piranshahr city and flows south-west through Iraq to join the Tigris north of the town of Baiji. The Dukan Dam straddles the Little Zab some 150 miles upstream from its confluence with the Tigris River. Constructed between 1954 and 1959, the dam has a total discharge capability of 4,300 cms. The power station, constructed in 1979, holds five water turbines and provides 400 MW of electrical energy.

In 1991, Zakho was the centre of the haven established by the British and the Americans in Operation Provide Comfort to protect the Iraqi Kurds from being massacred by Saddam Hussein when he responded brutally to the Kurdish rebellion. Most of the inhabitants of the city had fled to the mountains. When the American forces arrived, they described the town as a ghost city.[13]

The 27 February 1995 Zakho bombing killed over 50 people. When the U.S. Army closed its military base in Zakho in 1996, they evacuated several thousand Kurds who had connections to the base and who feared reprisals. Many of them were given asylum in the USA. According to David McDowall, this constituted a sudden brain drain, with Zakho losing many of its most educated citizens.[14]

In 2008 it was reported that the Turkish Army maintained four bases in Zakho District, under an agreement concluded with the Iraqi Government in the 1990s.[15]

The 2011 Dohuk riots, which targeted Assyrian-owned businesses, were sparked by kurdish Muslim clerics in the town.[16]

St. George Chaldean Cathedral in Zakho.

The city was the center of a large Chaldean Catholic diocese up until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was divided into three dioceses: Amadia, Zakho, and Akra-Zehbar. The Armenians of Zakho established their community after the Armenian genocide, with the first Armenian church in the city being established in 1923.[17]

Zakho was formerly known for its synagogues and large, ancient Jewish community and was known as "The Jerusalem of Assyria."[18] The banks of the nearby Khabur River are mentioned in the Bible as one of the places to which the Israelites were exiled (1 Chronicles, 5:26,[19] 2 Kings 17:6,[20] 2 Kings 18:11[21]).

The Jews spoke the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho and were also fluent in Kurmanji, the language spoken by non-Jewish Kurds.[22]

Kurdish society was primarily a tribal one. The Jews of Zakho bore arms like Kurdish Muslims.[23] There was an attack on the Jews in 1891, when one of the synagogues was burnt down. The troubles intensified in 1892.

Most of the Jews relocated to Israel in the 1950s.[24] While the Jews of Zakho were among the least literate in the diaspora, they had a unique and rich oral tradition, known for its legends, epics and ballads, whose heroes came from both Jewish and Muslim traditions.[25]