Which of the following cities is NOT part of the Sunni Triangle in Iraq ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Basra. The 'Sunni Triangle' is the densely populated, largely Sunni Arab region lying north and west of Baghdad, and it is defined by three corner cities: BAGHDAD at the south-eastern corner, RAMADI at the south-western corner and TIKRIT at the northern corner, with each side of the triangle running roughly 125 kilometres. Basra is none of these. It is Iraq's great southern port, standing on the Shatt al-Arab near the head of the Persian Gulf, several hundred kilometres to the south-east of the triangle and in a region whose population is overwhelmingly Shia. The port cities of the far south — Basra and Umm Qasr — are precisely the places conventionally described as lying far away from the triangle, so on both counts, geography and demography, Basra is the odd one out.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Ramadi is a corner of the triangle, not an exception to it. It stands on the Euphrates west of Baghdad and is the capital of Al Anbar, the large western governorate that formed the Sunni Arab heartland of the insurgency after 2003.  (b) Baghdad is the anchor of the whole formation — the south-eastern corner from which the triangle is measured. The region is defined precisely by its position relative to the capital, so the capital cannot be excluded from it.  (c) Tikrit is the northern corner. It lies on the Tigris upstream of Baghdad in Salah ad-Din governorate and was Saddam Hussein's birthplace, which is part of why the tract acquired its political significance in the first place.

Concept: The Sunni Triangle is a journalistic and military coinage rather than an administrative unit, and it came into wide use after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it named the area of heaviest resistance to the occupation. Its usefulness is that it captures Iraq's basic human geography in one shape. Iraq's population divides broadly into a Shia Arab majority concentrated in the south and in parts of Baghdad, a Sunni Arab minority in the centre and west, and a Kurdish population in the north and north-east. The triangle marks the Sunni Arab centre. It is not a line on any map of governorates; it is an approximate region drawn between three cities, and different accounts stretch or shift its corners — some substitute Fallujah or Samarra — but Baghdad, Ramadi and Tikrit are the standard three.

State PCS 2022 Q49 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q49 — Geography PYQ with Answer