An Iraqi insurgency began shortly after the 2003 American invasion deposed longtime leader Saddam Hussein. It is considered to have lasted until the end of the Iraq War and U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It was followed by a renewed insurgency.
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.
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 Sunnis.
The Battle of Haifa Street was fought during January 2007 for the control of Haifa Street, a two-mile-long street in downtown Baghdad, Iraq, pitting American and Iraqi Army forces against various Sunni insurgent forces between January 6 and January 9, 2007, and then two weeks later on January 24 when US forces launched a second attempt to clear Haifa Street of insurgents once and for all. This battle was the precursor for clearing operations that would set the conditions for "the surge" which ultimately neutralized insurgent groups in this part of Baghdad during the spring and summer of 2007.
The Diyala province campaign was a series of operations conducted by coalition forces against Iraqi insurgents and a number of bombing and guerrilla attacks against the security forces in Diyala Governorate of Iraq, with the purpose of control of the province.
Operation Phantom Thunder began on 16 June 2007, when Multi-National Force-Iraq launched major offensive operations against al-Qaeda and other extremist terrorists operating throughout Iraq. It was the largest coordinated military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Operation Phantom Thunder was a corps level operation, including Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Diyala Province, Operation Marne Torch and Operation Commando Eagle in Babil Province, Operation Fardh al-Qanoon in Baghdad, Operation Alljah in Anbar Province, and continuing special forces actions against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and against Al-Qaeda leadership throughout the country. The operation was one of the biggest military operations in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Operation Phantom Strike was a major offensive launched by the Multi-National Corps – Iraq on 15 August 2007 in a crackdown to disrupt both the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Shia insurgent operations in Iraq. It consisted of a number of simultaneous operations throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining ISI terrorists and Iranian-supported insurgent groups. It was concluded in January 2008 and followed up with Operation Phantom Phoenix.
Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, more commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It was founded on 17 October 2004, and was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri until its disbandment on 15 October 2006.
Operation Phantom Phoenix was a major nationwide offensive launched by the Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I) on 8 January 2008 in an attempt to build on the success of the two previous corps-level operations, Operation Phantom Thunder and Operation Phantom Strike and further reduce violence and secure Iraq's population, particularly in the capital Baghdad. The offensive consisted of a number of joint Coalition and Iraqi Army operations throughout northern Iraq as well as in the southern Baghdad Belts.
The 2008 Nineveh campaign was a series of offensives and counter-attacks between insurgent and Coalition forces for control of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq in early-to-mid-2008. Some fighting also occurred in the neighboring Kirkuk Governorate.
The Islamic State of Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist militant organization that fought the forces of the U.S.-led coalition during the Iraqi insurgency. The organization aimed to overthrow the Iraqi federal government and establish an Islamic state in Iraq.
The War in Iraq (2013–2017) was an armed conflict between Iraq and its allies and the Islamic State. Following December 2013, the insurgency escalated into full-scale guerrilla warfare following clashes in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah in parts of western Iraq, and culminated in the Islamic State offensive into Iraq in June 2014, which lead to the capture of the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and other cities in western and northern Iraq by the Islamic State. Between 4–9 June 2014, the city of Mosul was attacked and later fell; following this, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for a national state of emergency on 10 June. However, despite the security crisis, Iraq's parliament did not allow Maliki to declare a state of emergency; many legislators boycotted the session because they opposed expanding the prime minister's powers. Ali Ghaidan, a former military commander in Mosul, accused al-Maliki of being the one who issued the order to withdraw from the city of Mosul. At its height, ISIL held 56,000 square kilometers of Iraqi territory, containing 4.5 million citizens.
The departure of US troops from Iraq in 2011 ended the period of occupation that had begun with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The time since U.S. withdrawal has been marked by a renewed Iraqi insurgency and by a spillover of the Syrian civil war into Iraq. By 2013, the insurgency escalated into a renewed war, the central government of Iraq being opposed by ISIL and various factions, primarily radical Sunni forces during the early phase of the conflict. The war ended in 2017 with an Iraqi government and allied victory, however ISIL continues a low-intensity insurgency in remote parts of the country.
The Second Battle of Tikrit was a battle in which Iraqi Security Forces recaptured the city of Tikrit from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Iraqi forces consisted of the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Forces, receiving assistance from Iran's Quds Force officers on the ground, and air support from the American, British, and French air forces.
The Salahuddin Campaign was a military conflict in the Saladin Governorate, located in north-central Iraq, involving various factions fighting against a single common enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The province exited Iraqi government control during ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive when large swathes of the north of the country were captured by the militant group with the Iraqi national army quickly disintegrating in the path of its advance. In light of the sweeping gains of the militants, Nouri Al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq at that time, attempted to declare a state of emergency though the Iraqi Parliament blocked his efforts to do so.
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) or Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the People's Mobilization Committee (PMC) and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of approximately 67 different armed factions, with around 230,000 fighters that are mostly Shia Muslim groups, but also include Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Yazidi groups. The Popular Mobilization Units as a group was formed in 2014 and have fought in nearly every major battle against ISIL. Many of its main militias, in particular the Shias, trace their origins to the "Special Groups", Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite groups which previously fought an insurgency against the United States and the Coalition forces, as well as a sectarian conflict against Sunni Jihadist and Ba'athist insurgents. It has been called the new Iraqi Republican Guard after it was fully reorganized in early 2018 by its then–Commander in Chief Haider al-Abadi, Prime Minister of Iraq from 2014 to 2018, who issued "regulations to adapt the situation of the Popular Mobilization fighters".
The siege of Fallujah was an offensive launched in February 2016 by the Iraqi government against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in al-Karmah and in the city of Fallujah, with the aim of enforcing a siege of the latter. During the early stages of the operation, local Sunni residents revolted against ISIL for a period of three days. On 22 May, after completing preparations around the city, the Iraqi Army and supporting Shi'ite militias launched the third Battle of Fallujah.
The Battle of Hawija was an offensive launched in September 2017 by the Iraqi Army, in order to recapture the town of Hawija and the surrounding areas from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The origins of the Islamic State group can be traced back to three main organizations. Earliest of these was the "Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād" organization, founded by the Jihadist leader Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Jordan in 1999. The other two predecessor organizations emerged during the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation forces. These included the "Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah" group founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004 and the "Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah" group founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his associates in the same year.
