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Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located along the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient Akkadian city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. In the eighth century, Baghdad was chosen as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and became its most notable major development project. Within a short time, the city evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning".
The economy of Iraq is dominated by the oil sector, which has provided about 99.7% of foreign exchange earnings during its modern history. As of 2021, the oil sector provides about 92% of foregin exchange earnings. Iraq's hitherto agrarian economy underwent rapid development following the 14 July Revolution which overthrowned the Hashemite Iraqi monarchy. It had become the third-largest economy in the Middle East by 1980. This occurred in part because of the Iraqi government's successful industrialization and infrastructure development initiatives in the 1970s, which included irrigation projects, railway and highway construction, and rural electrification.
The occupation of Iraq is characterized by a large United States military deployment on Iraqi territory, beginning with the U.S.-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 invasion came primarily from the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland, but 29 other nations also provided some troops, and there were varying levels of assistance from Japan and other countries.
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, in the afternoon of August 19, 2003. It killed 22 people, including the United Nations' Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100, including human rights lawyer and political activist Dr. 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.
Investment in post-2003 Iraq refers to international efforts to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq since the Iraq War in 2003.
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which may be abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a militant Jihadist 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 and a considerable Iraqi membership.
Enzo G. Baldoni was an Italian journalist working freelance and for the Italian news magazine Diario before being kidnapped and killed in captivity as captured on video by his captors. Baldoni was one of two Italians kidnapped in Iraq.
Margaret Hassan, also known as "Madam Margaret", was an Irish-born aid worker who had worked in Iraq for many years until she was abducted and murdered by unidentified kidnappers in Iraq in 2004, at the age of 59. Her remains have never been recovered.
Events in the year 2005 in Iraq.
Giuliana Sgrena is an Italian journalist who works for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto and the German weekly Die Zeit. While working in Iraq, she was kidnapped by insurgents on 4 February 2005. After her release on 4 March, Sgrena and the two Italian intelligence officers who had helped secure her release came under fire from U.S. forces while on their way to Baghdad International Airport. Nicola Calipari, a major general in the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service was killed, and Sgrena and one other officer were wounded in the incident. The event caused an international outcry.
Members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign hostages in Iraq beginning in April 2004. Since then, in a dramatic instance of Islamist kidnapping they have taken captive more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens of hostages were killed and others rescued or freed. In 2004, executions of captives were often filmed, and many were beheaded. However, the number of the recorded killings decreased significantly. Many hostages remain missing with no clue as to their whereabouts. The United States Department of State Hostage Working Group was organized by the U.S. Embassy, Baghdad, in the summer of 2004 to monitor foreign hostages in Iraq.
The 1920 Revolution Brigades is a Sunni militia group in Iraq, which includes former members of the disbanded Iraqi army. The group has used improvised explosive devices, and armed attacks against U.S./Coalition forces. The group comprises the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement. The group is named in reference to the Iraqi revolt of 1920.
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States–led coalition which overthrew the Iraqi 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. An estimated 151,000 to 1,033,000 Iraqis died in the first three to five years of conflict. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict continue today. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's War on Terror following the September 11 attacks despite no connection of the latter to Iraq.
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iraqi academics have frequently been threatened with violence, kidnapped, or murdered. Although it is impossible to determine the exact scale of the violence and intimidation, the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education reported that over 3,250 academics had fled the country between February and August 2006. According to the Iraqi Association of University Lecturers about 300 academics, including Ph.D.'s working in Iraqi government ministries and university administrators, had been killed before January, 2007. Other, less reliable, sources have placed the death toll as low as 20 and as high as 1,000.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq or Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, officially known as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn or TQJBR, was an Iraqi Sunni Islamic Jihadist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, for two years.
Iraqi–Italian relations are the interstate ties relations between Iraq and Italy. Iraq has an embassy in Rome and Italy has an embassy in Baghdad and a consulate-general in Basra.
Douglas Joseph Shimshon Al-Bazi is a Chaldean Catholic Church parish priest in Auckland, New Zealand, as the leader of the Chaldean Catholic congregation there. He formerly served in Baghdad, Iraq.
From 15 to 21 May 2013, a series of deadly bombings and shootings struck the central and northern parts of Iraq, with a few incidents occurring in towns in the south and far west as well. The attacks killed at least 449 people and left 732 others injured in one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in years.
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.
References
- ↑ "2 Italians and 2 Iraqis Kidnapped From Offices in Baghdad", Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times , September 8, 2004
- ↑ "A Joyous Return", Jeff Israely, Time magazine Europe, October 11, 2004
