Sadr City, formerly known as Al-Thawra and Saddam City, is a suburb district of the city of Baghdad, Iraq. It was built in 1959 by Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim and named Al-Rafidain District. After the US-led invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam, it was unofficially renamed Sadr City after Ayatollah Muhammad al-Sadr.
Ayatollah al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Muhsin al-Hakim at-Tabataba'i, also known as Shaheed al-Mehraab, was a senior Iraqi Shia Islamic Scholar and the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Al-Hakim spent more than 20 years in exile in Iran and returned to Iraq on 12 May 2003 following the US-led invasion. Al-Hakim was a contemporary of Ayatollah Khomeini, and The Guardian compared the two in terms of their times in exile and their support in their respective homelands. After his return to Iraq, al-Hakim's life was in danger because of his work to encourage Shiite resistance to Saddam Hussein and from a rivalry with Muqtada al-Sadr, the son of the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who had himself been assassinated in Najaf in 1999. Al-Hakim was assassinated in a massive car-bomb explosion in his hometown Najaf in 2003 when he emerged from the shrine of Imam Ali. He was 63. At least 75 others were also killed in the bombing.
Muqtada al-Sadr is an Iraqi Shia Muslim cleric, politician and militia leader. He inherited the leadership of the Sadrist Movement from his father. He founded the now dissolved Mahdi Army militia in 2003 that resisted the American occupation of Iraq. He also founded the Promised Day Brigade militia after the dissolution of the Mahdi Army; both were backed by Iran. In 2014, he founded the Peace Companies militia and is its current head. In 2018, he joined his Sadrist political party to the Saairun alliance, which won the highest number of seats in the 2018 and 2021 Iraqi parliamentary elections.
The Mahdi Army or Jaish Al-Imam Mahdi ' a'ajal allahu farajah ' or The Army of Imam Mahdi ' was an Iraqi Shia militia created by Muqtada al-Sadr in June 2003 and disbanded in 2008.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq was completed and the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled in May 2003, an Iraqi insurgency began that would last until the United States left in 2011. The 2003–2006 phase of the Iraqi insurgency lasted until early 2006, when it escalated from an insurgency to a Sunni-Shia civil war, which became the most violent phase of the Iraq War.
At approximately 6:44 a.m. Arabia Standard Time on 22 February 2006, al-Askari Shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was severely damaged in a bombing attack amidst the then-ongoing Iraq War. Constructed in the 10th century, it is one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam. Despite the magnitude of the explosions, there were no casualties. American president George W. Bush asserted that the bombing had been carried out by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which denied involvement in the attack.
The following lists events that happened during 2006 in Iraq.
Ismail Hafidh al-Lami — known as Abu Deraa is an Iraqi Shia militant whose men have been accused of retaliatory terrorizing and killing of Sunnis.
The 2004 Iraq spring fighting was a series of operational offensives and various major engagements during the Iraq War. It was a turning point in the war; the Spring Fighting marked the entrance into the conflict of militias and religiously based militant Iraqi groups, such as the Shi'a Mahdi Army.
On 1 July 2006, at around 10:00 A.M, a suicide car bombing at a crowded market in Sadr City, a Shi'ite district of Baghdad, killed at least 77 people and wounded 96.
The 2007 al-Askari mosque bombing occurred on 13 June 2007 at around 9 am local time at one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari Mosque, and has been attributed by Iran to the Iraqi Baath Party. While there were no injuries or deaths reported, the mosque's two ten-story minarets were destroyed in the attacks. This was the second bombing of the mosque, with the first bombing occurring on 22 February 2006 and destroying the mosque's golden dome.
Events in the year 2008 in Iraq.
The 2008 Iraq spring fighting was a series of clashes between the Mahdi Army and allies and the Iraqi Army supported by coalition forces, in southern Iraq and parts of Baghdad, that began with an Iraqi offensive in Basra.
The siege of Sadr City was a blockade of the Shi'a district of northeastern Baghdad carried out by US and Iraqi government forces in an attempt to destroy the main power base of the insurgent Mahdi Army in Baghdad. The siege began on 4 April 2004 – later dubbed "Black Sunday" – with an uprising against the Coalition Provisional Authority following the government banning of a newspaper published by Muqtada Al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement. The most intense periods of fighting in Sadr City occurred during the first uprising in April 2004, the second in August the same year, during the sectarian conflict that gripped Baghdad in late 2006, during the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, and during the spring fighting of 2008.
The April 2010 Baghdad bombings were a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad, Iraq that killed at least 85 people over two days. Hundreds more were seriously wounded.
On 22 December 2011, a series of coordinated attacks occurred in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 69 people. This was the first major attack following U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
From 15 to 21 May 2013, a series of deadly bombings and shootings struck the central and northern parts of Iraq, with a few incidents occurring in towns in the south and far west as well. The attacks killed at least 449 people and left 732 others injured in one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in years.
In May 2016, the Islamic State conducted a series of bombing attacks in and around Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, killing and wounding hundreds. According to ISIL, attacks were aimed at Shia fighters.
The 1979–1980 Shia uprising in Iraq, also known as the First Sadr Uprising, took place as a followup to the Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) in neighbouring Iran, as the Shia Iraqi clerics vowed to overthrow Ba'athist Iraq, dominated by (secular) Sunni Muslims - specifically the Saddam Hussein family. Saddam and his deputies believed that the riots had been inspired by the Iranian Revolution and instigated by Iran's government. The riots erupted in May 1979 and escalated in June - leading to thousands being tortured and killed in Najaf. The uprising subsided with the April 1980 arrest of the leader of Shia Iraqis, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his subsequent execution.
