On 21 October 2016; IS fighters in early hours of Friday launched a Blitzkrieg styled counterattack on Kirkuk which is an oil rich city that lies in the central-eastern part of Iraq. The attack came as a retaliation as Iraqi forces (Golden Brigade, PMU, other affiliated groups) and coalition forces jointly launched a massive attack from air and land on the stronghold of Islamic State in Mosul with army of over 100,000.
The attack was conducted by 86 fighters from Islamic State who had been planning the attack for days. The targets of the attacks were carefully chosen to be strategic importance. The targets included government buildings and offices, power station, police stations and military checkpoints. As Kurdish police vacated entire city after the news spread of attack, jihadist fighters by end of the day, also returned and left Kirkuk. Soon after, curfew was immediately imposed throughout the city and air strikes were called in.
Police and armed forces returned only after the situation was calm about a day later and started sweeping and clearing out operations.
Islamic State's assault on Kirkuk, killed 18 members of the security forces and workers at a power station outside the city, including two Iranians, according to a local hospital. Islamic State lost 8 fighters (either KIA or blew themselves up). One Kurdish police officer was taken hostage by the fighters. [1] [2] [3] [4]
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 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 Nouri 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.
Between 1 and 15 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) expanded territory in northern Iraq under their control. In the region north and west from Mosul, the Islamic State conquered Zumar, Sinjar, Wana, Mosul Dam, Qaraqosh, Tel Keppe, Batnaya and Kocho, and in the region south and east of Mosul the towns Bakhdida, Karamlish, Bartella and Makhmour
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Iraq.
On 15 June 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched in response to the Northern Iraq offensive of the Islamic State (IS), as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. At the invitation of the Iraqi government, American troops went to assess Iraqi forces and the threat posed by ISIL.
This is a timeline of events during the War in Iraq in 2015.
The fall of Mosul in Iraq occurred between 4 and 10 June 2014, when Islamic State (IS) insurgents, initially led by Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, captured Mosul from the Iraqi Army, led by Lieutenant General Mahdi Al-Gharrawi.
The Timeline of the War in Iraq covers the War in Iraq, a war which erupted that lasted in Iraq from 2013 to 2017, during the first year of armed conflict.
In early 2014, the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured extensive territory in Western Iraq in the Anbar campaign, while counter-offensives against it were mounted in Syria. Raqqa in Syria became its headquarters. The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived under its control in the two countries.
The Shirqat offensive, codenamed Operation Conquest or Operation Fatah, was an offensive against the positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in and around the district of Al-Shirqat District to reach the city of Mosul.
This is a timeline of events during the War in Iraq in 2016.
The Battle of Mosul was a major battle initiated by the Iraqi Government forces with allied forces to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIL), which had seized the city years prior in June 2014. It was the largest conventional land battle since the capture of Baghdad in 2003. It was also the world's single largest military operation overall since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was considered the toughest urban battle since World War II.
The Battle of Kirkuk took place in the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq between Kurdistan and allies and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The battle occurred less than a week after the beginning of the Battle of Mosul launched by Iraqi security forces and allies.
This is a timeline of events during the War in Iraq of 2013 to 2017 in its final year.
The 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, also known as the Kirkuk crisis, was a conflict in which the Iraqi government retook disputed territories in Iraq which had been held by the Peshmerga since ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive in 2014. The conflict began on 15 October 2017 after tensions arising from the Kurdistan Region independence referendum of 25 September. The tension between the federal Iraqi government and Kurdistan Region escalated into conflict when the Peshmerga ignored repeated warnings to return Kirkuk to Iraqi government forces. Part of the conflict was the Battle of Kirkuk, when Iraqi forces routed Peshmerga forces from the city in a surprise dawn-offensive, marking the beginning of clashes.
The following is a timeline of the Battle of Mosul (2016–17) between October and December 2016.
This is a timeline of events during the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq (2017–present) in 2018.