The Occupation of Iraq (2003–2011) was characterized by a large United States military deployment on Iraqi territory, beginning with the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003 which overthrew the Ba'ath Party government of Saddam Hussein and ending with the departure of US troops from the country in 2011. Troops for the occupation came primarily from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, but 29 other nations also provided troops, and there were varying levels of assistance from Japan and other countries, as well as tens of thousands of private military company personnel.
Abu Ghraib prison was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison. From the 1970s, the prison was used by Saddam Hussein to hold political prisoners and later the United States to hold Iraqi prisoners. It developed a reputation for torture and extrajudicial killing, and was closed in 2014.
Camp Bucca was a forward operating base that housed a theater internment facility maintained by the United States military in the vicinity of Umm Qasr, Iraq. After being taken over by the U.S. military in April 2003, it was renamed after Ronald Bucca, a New York City fire marshal who died in the 11 September 2001 attacks. The site where Camp Bucca was built had earlier housed the tallest structure in Iraq, a 492-meter-high TV mast.
About six months after the United States invasion of Iraq of 2003, rumors of Iraq prison abuse scandals started to emerge.
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.
The Islamic Army in Iraq was an underground Islamist militant organization formed in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led Coalition forces, and the subsequent collapse of the Ba'athist regime headed by Saddam Hussein. IAI was regarded as one of the largest, sophisticated and most influential Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq that led an asymmetrical military insurgency against Coalition forces. The group became known for its grisly videos of kidnappings and attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.
Events in the year 2005 in Iraq.
The Battle of Abu Ghraib took place between Iraqi Mujahideen and United States forces at Abu Ghraib prison on April 2, 2005.
The Iraq War, sometimes called the Second Persian Gulf War, or Second Gulf War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011.
During the 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan, many Taliban, al-Qaeda and militant fighters were captured and held at military bases in the region. On several occasions, there were instances of mass escapes.
The September 2006 Yemen attacks were two attempted bombings of oil facilities in Yemen, carried out by suspected Islamic militants on September 15, 2006. All four attackers and one security guard died during the attacks.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
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.
Kandahar Central Jail, also known as Sarpuza Prison, is a minimum-security prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It is located next to the Kandahar-Herat Highway in the Sarpuza neighborhood, which is between the neighborhoods of Mirwais Mena and Shahr-e Naw, in the western part of the city. Its current warden is Sayed Akhtar Mohammad Agha Hussaini.
Harith Mohey Al Deen Abd al-Obeidi was an Iraqi politician and cleric and member of Parliament for the Iraqi Accord Front. He was assassinated on 12 June 2009.
The Northern Iraq offensive began on 4 June 2014, when the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, assisted by various insurgent groups in the region, began a major offensive from its territory in Syria into Iraq against Iraqi and Kurdish forces, following earlier clashes that had begun in December 2013 involving guerillas.
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.
During the Iraq War, occupying U.S. forces set up camps and converted existing prisons in Iraq to detain POWs, suspected terrorists, and insurgents who were opposed to the American occupation. While reports vary, from 2003 onwards U.S. troops stationed in Iraq detained more than 100,000 prisoners in the American-held detention complexes. Many of these detainments were later determined to be unlawful, and the treatment of the prisoners, inhumane. While the most prominent case of unlawful imprisonment, torture, and prisoner abuse occurred at Abu Ghraib prison, several other detainment centers were revealed to have operated in a similar fashion, most notably at Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper.
