The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq; there were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.
Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known by his nom de guerreAbu Nidal, was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). At the height of its militancy in the 1970s and 1980s, the ANO was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian groups.
The Iraqi Republican Guard was a branch of the Iraqi military from 1969 to 2003, which existed primarily during the presidency of Saddam Hussein. It later became known as the Republican Guard Corps, and then the Republican Guard Forces Command (RGFC) with its expansion into two corps. The Republican Guard was disbanded in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led international coalition.
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 39-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led Liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991.
This is a timeline of the events surrounding the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Iraqi no-fly zones conflict was a low-level conflict in the two no-fly zones (NFZs) in Iraq that were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France after the Gulf War of 1991. The United States stated that the NFZs were intended to protect the ethnic Kurdish minority in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south. Iraqi aircraft were forbidden from flying inside the zones. The policy was enforced by the United States and the United Kingdom until 2003, when it was rendered obsolete by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. French aircraft patrols also participated until France withdrew in 1996.
Tareq Ayyoub was an Arab television reporter of Palestinian nationality, employed by Al Jazeera, and previously by Fox News. Ayyoub was killed in 2003 when two missiles, fired from by an American ground-attack aircraft, struck the Baghdad headquarters of the Al Jazeera Satellite Channel during the 2003 US-led Invasion of Iraq. The Al Jazeera station was clearly marked as a media centre, and the US military had been informed of its location in February.
The following lists events in the year 2003 in Iraq.
The military history of Iraq, due to a rich archaeological record, is one of the longest in written human history. The region of Iraq, which used to be Mesopotamia, has been referred to as the "cradle of civilization", and wars of conquest have been recorded in this region as far back as the third millennium BC. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire is by many researchers regarded to have been the first world empire in history. The area possesses strategic value, initially for the rich, fertile agricultural region in the Mesopotamian plain, and more recently for large petroleum deposits and access to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The present territory of Iraq lacks significant strategic barriers, making it difficult to defend against foreign invasion.
Ghassan Hamdan is an Iraqi scholar, poet and translator.
The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Al-Qaeda.
Kadhem Sharif al-Jabouri is an Iraqi wrestler and weightlifter. He attempted to use a sledgehammer to bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein at the Firdos Square in Baghdad.
The cruise missiles strike on Iraq in June 1993 were ordered by U.S. President Bill Clinton as both a retaliation and a warning triggered by the attempted assassination by alleged Iraqi intelligence agents of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush while on a visit to Kuwait from 14–16 April 1993.
Iraq–Pakistan relations refer to the bilateral ties between the Republic of Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Cultural interaction and economic trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley date back to 1800 BCE. In 1955, both Iraq and Pakistan joined the Baghdad Pact, a military alliance against the Soviet Union. However, when the king of Iraq was assassinated in 1958, Iraq pulled out of the Baghdad Pact, which was subsequently renamed to the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). During the Ba'athist era, relations were at times cordial and sometimes hostile. However, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled the Ba'athist government, bilateral relations have stabilized; Pakistan has supported Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State and other militant groups active in the Iraqi conflict. Iraq maintains an embassy in Islamabad while Pakistan maintains an embassy in Baghdad.
The Gulf War of 1990–1991 included air campaign, as the air forces of the coalition carried an extensive aerial bombing campaign from 17 January 1991 to 23 February 1991 against Iraq. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs, widely destroying military and civilian infrastructure. The air campaign was commanded by United States Air Force (USAF) lieutenant general Chuck Horner, who briefly served as Commander-in-Chief—Forward of U.S. Central Command while general Norman Schwarzkopf was still in the United States. The British air commanders were Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Wilson and Air Vice-Marshal Bill Wratten. The air campaign had largely finished by 23 February 1991 when the coalition invasion of Kuwait took place.
The 23rd Arab League Summit was the third one held in Baghdad and the first one since 1990, before the start of the Gulf War. The decision to grant the host rights to Iraq was made at the previous summit in Sirte. Among the subjects discussed were the Iraqi debts to its neighbors and the uprising in Syria. The summit marked the first time since the Invasion of Kuwait that an acting Emir paid a visit to Iraq. The summit was also notable as being the first held since the beginning of the Arab Spring, during which the governments of several member states were overthrown by popular revolutions.
Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim, known by the kunya Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, also spelled Mohandes, was an Iraqi-Iranian commander of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). At the time of his death, he was deputy chief of the PMF and regarded as one of Iraq’s most powerful men.
Daniel James Hampton Jr. is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1986 to 2006. He flew 151 combat missions in the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and logged 726 career combat hours. Lt. Col (Ret.) Hampton is best known as a "Wild Weasel", or surface to air missile (SAM) site killer, recording 21 hard kills on SAM sites. Hampton fought in multiple wars, including the Gulf War, Kosovo War, and Iraq War. He also flew combat air patrols during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Hampton was wounded in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and again as a private military contractor in Baghdad.
The timeline of the Gulf War details the dates of the major events of the 1990–1991 war. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 and ended with the Liberation of Kuwait by Coalition forces. Iraq subsequently agreed to the United Nations' demands on 28 February 1991. The ground war officially concluded with the signing of the armistice on 11 April 1991. However, the official end to Operation Desert Storm did not occur until sometime between 1996 - 1998. Major events in the aftermath include anti-Saddam Hussein uprisings in Iraq, massacres against the Kurds by the regime, Iraq formally recognizing the sovereignty of Kuwait in 1994, and eventually ending its cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission in 1998.
On 8 January 2020, in a military operation code named Operation Martyr Soleimani, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched over 12 ballistic missiles at the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Al Anbar Governorate, western Iraq, as well as another airbase in Erbil, in response to the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani by a United States drone strike.
