Kifri (; ; ) is the central town of Kifri District in Diyala Governorate, Iraq. It has a Kurdish majority and a Turkmen and Arab minority. It is administered by Kurdistan Region but remains a disputed area. History Kifri was known to have oil as early as the 1820s. James Buckingham visited Kifri in the 1820s. He described the town as clean and moderately large, estimating its population at 3,000. Buckingham also described the town as having furnished bazaars with excellent fruit, especially melons and grapes. Kifri had a cookshop selling kebabs, roast meat and sausages, and one coffee-house. Kifri, which was also known as Salahiye during the Ottoman era, was part of the Ottoman Empire until the United Kingdom captured the town in April 1918 during the Mesopotamian campaign. During the capture, 565 Ottoman prisoners and one mountain gun were captured. The local Kurds were supportive of the British and were described as very hostile to the Ottomans. Britain briefly lost control over the town for two days during the revolt of 1920 to the local tribes. Captain G. H. Salmon was killed during the tribal takeover. The locals of Kifri did not support the Mahmud Barzanji revolts causing Mahmud Barzanji not to push for the inclusion of the town into his jurisdiction. In 1921, the town was included in the plans of Winston Churchill in creating an independent Kurdistan which would work as a bulwark against Turkey. Under the British Mandate of Iraq, the Turkoman language was an official language in Kifri under Article 5 of the Language Act of 1930, due to the town's significant Turkmen population. British data stated that Kurds constituted 67% and 60% of the population in the town in 1924 and 1931, respectively, while the remaining population was Arab and Turkmen. However, the town was not included in the 1931 British-Iraqi 'Local Languages Law' initiative which would have made Kurdish an official language in the town for arbitrary reasons. 70% of the population was Kurdish in the Iraqi census of 1947. Iraq's first two Turkmen schools were opened on November 17 1993, one in Erbil and the other in Kifri. Iraqi-Kurdish conflict While it was previously part of Kirkuk Governorate, it was attached to Diyala Governorate in 1976 as part of the Arabization efforts by Iraq. The town was quickly captured by Kurdish rebels (Peshmerga) in March 1991 during an uprising that began