Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Nasiri al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician, military leader, and the second son of Saddam Hussein. He was appointed as his father's heir apparent in 2000. He was also in charge of the Republican Guard, a branch of the Iraqi military. Qusay, his son Mustafa, and his brother Uday were killed in a 2003 U.S. raid in Mosul.
Under the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, Iraq's human rights record was considered one of the worst in the world. Secret police, state terrorism, torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, deportations, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, assassinations, chemical warfare, and the destruction of the Mesopotamian marshes were some of the methods Saddam Hussein and the country's Ba'athist government used to maintain control. Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, which violated the Charter of the United Nations. The total number of deaths and disappearances related to repression during this period is unknown, but is estimated to be at least 250,000 to 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch, with the great majority of those occurring as a result of the Anfal genocide in 1988 and the suppression of the uprisings in Iraq in 1991. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.
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.
The following is a timeline of major events during the Iraq War, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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 Green Zone is the most common name for the International Zone of Baghdad. It is a 10-square-kilometer (3.9 sq mi) area in the Karkh district of central Baghdad, Iraq, and the seat of the Iraqi government. View over Green Zone, which contains governmental headquarters and the army, in addition to containing the headquarters of the American embassy and the headquarters of foreign organizations and agencies of other countries.
Amarah, also spelled Amara, is a city in south-eastern Iraq, located on a low ridge next to the Tigris River waterway south of Baghdad about 50 km from the border with Iran. It lies at the northern tip of the marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates.
The Badr Organization, previously known as the Badr Brigades or Badr Corps, is an Iraqi Shia Islamist and Khomeinist political party and paramilitary organization headed by Hadi al-Amiri. The Badr Brigade, formed in 1982 and led by Iranian officers, served as the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shia Islamic party based in Iran. The Badr Brigade was created by Iranian intelligence and Shia cleric Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim with the aim of fighting the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War. Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, most of the Badr Brigade fighters have entered the new Iraqi army and police force. Since 2003, the Badr Brigade and SCIRI were considered to be one party, but have recently unofficially separated with the Badr Organization now being an official Iraqi political party. Badr Brigade forces, and their Iranian commanders, have come to prominence in 2014 fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq. It is a part of the Popular Mobilization Forces.
Amina Haydar al-Sadr, known as Bint al-Huda al-Sadr, was an Iraqi educator and political activist who was executed by Saddam Hussein's regime along with her brother, Ayatullah Sayyid Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, in 1980.
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr was a prominent Iraqi Shia marja'. He called for government reform and the release of detained Shia leaders. The growth of his popularity, often referred to as the followers of the Vocal Hawza, also put him in competition with other Shi'a leaders, including Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim who was exiled in Iran.
The 1991 Iraqi uprisings were ethnic and religious uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq that were led by Shia Arabs and Kurds. The uprisings lasted from March to April 1991 after a ceasefire following the end of the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinated insurgency was fueled by the perception that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had become vulnerable to regime change. This perception of weakness was largely the result of the outcome of the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, both of which occurred within a single decade and devastated the population and economy of Iraq.
The 2006 Sadr City bombings were a series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Iraq that occurred on 23 November at 15:10 Baghdad time and ended at 15:55. Six car bombs and two mortar rounds were used in the attack on the Shia slum in Sadr City.
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.
House of Saddam is a 2008 British docudrama television miniseries that charted the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. A co-production between BBC Television and HBO Films, the series was first broadcast on BBC Two in four parts between 30 July and 20 August 2008.
Maher Abdul Rashid was an Iraqi military officer. Rashid rose to prominence during the Iran-Iraq War, and was regarded as one of Saddam's best generals, serving as Chief-of-Staff of the Iraqis after being brought out of retirement, which he had been forced into in 1983. Rashid also played a prominent role in helping Iraq to regain her initiative during the war. Not all assessments of Rashid were so kind, and Ra'ad al-Hamdani refers to him as "one of the dumbest generals in the army".
Ra'ad Majid Rashid al-Hamdani is a retired Iraqi military officer and former General of the Iraqi Republican Guard, and was one of Saddam Hussein's favourite generals.
The 1999 Shia uprising in Iraq or Second Sadr Uprising was a short period of unrest in Iraq in early 1999 following the killing of Muhammad al-Sadr by the then Ba'athist government of Iraq. The protests and ensuing violence were strongest in the heavily Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, as well as southern majority Shiite cities such as Karbala, Nasiriyah, Kufa, Najaf, and Basra.
Walid Hamid Tawfiq al-Nasiri al-Tikriti was the Governor of Basra from September 2002 to April 2003 and the Director of the Iraqi Special Security Organization from June 2001 to September 2002.
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.
Ba'athist Iraq 
