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.
The following is a timeline of major events during the Iraq War, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Canal Hotel bombing was a suicide truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, during the afternoon of 19 August 2003. It killed 23 people, including the United Nations' Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100, including human rights lawyer and political activist Amin Mekki Medani. The blast targeted the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq created just five days earlier. The 19 August bombing resulted in the withdrawal within weeks of most of the 600 UN staff members from Iraq. These events were to have a profound and lasting impact on the UN's security practices globally.
Events in the year 2004 in Iraq.
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.
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Salafi jihadist militant group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters with a considerable Iraqi membership.
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.
Events in the year 2005 in Iraq.
The Iraq War, sometimes called the Second Persian 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.
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".
Al-Mansour or just Mansour is one of the nine administrative districts in Baghdad, Iraq. It is in western Baghdad and is bounded on the east by al-Karkh district in central Baghdad, to the north by Kadhimiya, to the west by Baghdad International Airport, and to the south by Baghdad Airport Road, on the other side of which is al-Rashid district.
During the Iraq War, the Ramadan Offensive of the Iraqi insurgency marked a sharp increase in the number of violent attacks against the American-led military coalition in Iraq and also against the new Iraqi government, beginning in the end of October 2003 and persisting for most of November 2003.
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.
In 2003, there were 25 suicide bombings executed by 32 attackers.
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 governed by Sharia law in Iraq.
In May 2016, the Islamic State conducted a series of bombing attacks in and around Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, killing and wounding hundreds. According to ISIL, attacks were aimed at Shia fighters.
On 3 July 2016, ISIL militants carried out coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad that killed 340 civilians and injured hundreds more. A few minutes after midnight local time, a suicide truck-bomb targeted the mainly Shia district of Karrada, busy with late night shoppers for Ramadan. A second roadside bomb was detonated in the suburb of Sha'ab, killing at least five.
On 14 September 2017, several members of ISIL staged multiple attacks on the outskirts of Nasiriyah in the southern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, killing at least 84 people and injuring 93 others.
