October 23, 2015

Early yesterday, October 22, U.S. Special Forces and allied Kurdish troops rescued 69 captives from an Islamic State (also known as ISIS) compound in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija. The prisoners, like so many others in the hands of the Islamic State terrorist group, were about to be killed in a mass execution. Kurdish security forces—known as peshmerga (Kurdish for those who confront death)—asked for help to rescue the prisoners, and the Special Forces responded.

Five U.S. helicopters—similar to the Marine helicopter pictured here—flew U.S. and Kurdish forces to and from the raid in Hawija. On the return trip, the helicopters also carried 69 freed prisoners and 5 Islamic State captives. © Summer Dowding, Department Of Defense

To aid in the fight against the Islamic State, a small number of U.S. troops deployed (were sent) to Iraq in an advisory role last year. Anticipating the need to expand that role, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has since steadily increased to some 3,500. Thursday’s raid marked the first official time that American troops had fought alongside local forces against the Islamic State. The rescue mission was an overwhelming success, but it cost the life of one American, a 39-year-old Army master sergeant from Oklahoma. The U.S. soldier’s death in action was the first in Iraq since the Iraq War ended in 2011, and the first U.S. combat fatality in the fight against the Islamic State. More than 20 Islamic State militants died in the raid, and 5 others were captured. American officials were quick to point out that the raid was an isolated rescue mission, a “unique circumstance,” and not a change in tactics.

Hawija lies in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, some 30 miles south of the city of Kirkuk. Kurdish and Iraqi forces have been battling Islamic State militants in the area since 2014. Many thousands of people have died in the area’s fighting, and many others have become prisoners of the Islamic State. As is well known by now, people captured by the Islamic State are often massacred.

September 3, 2014

President Barack Obama vowed today that the United States will not be intimidated by the latest murder of an American journalist by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Yesterday, ISIS released a video showing the killing of journalist Steven Sotloff, whom ISIS had held captive in Syria since August 2013. President Obama declared that Sotloff’s murder was a “horrific act of violence, and we cannot begin to imagine the agony everyone who loves Steven is feeling right now. Our country grieves with them.” The president went on to warn, “Our reach is long and justice will be served.” He also announced that he had ordered the deployment of another 350 troops to Baghdad to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities.

ISIS first threatened Sotloff’s life two weeks ago when it posted online a video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley. At the time, the militants said Sotloff’s life depended on the United States ending its air offensive against ISIS forces in Iraq. The United States has launched more than 120 air strikes over the past month to support Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, in their attempt to stop the ISIS advance across northern Iraq. In late June, ISIS declared that it was establishing a caliphate on the territories it controls to be known simply as “the Islamic State,” which will extend from Aleppo in northern Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq.

On September 1, the Peshmerga, joined by Iraqi soldiers and Shi`ite militia men–backed by U.S. aircraft–broke ISIS’s nearly two-month siege of the Iraqi town of Amirli. Instead of fleeing in the face of ISIS forces, the residents of Amirli, primarily Shi`ite Turkmens, had stayed and fortified their town of 15,000 with trenches and armed positions. They lived with little food and water and no electric power since the siege began. ISIS, made up of radical Sunni Muslim jihadists, regard the Shi`ite Turkmen as apostates and, therefore, unworthy to continue living.

Additional World Book articles:

• Umayyad caliphate
• Iraq War
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria: The Roots of a Rebellion (a special report)

October 16, 2013

Some half a million people died in Iraq as a result of war-related causes between the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and July 2011, announced researchers from Simon Fraser University in Canada, Mustansiriya University in Iraq, and Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington in the United States. The researchers based their estimate on randomized sampling. Interviewers surveyed 2,000 households in 100 geographical clusters across Iraq’s 18 provinces in mid-2011. The half-million figure they reached included deaths from the invasion, the subsequent insurgency, and the horrific wave of sectarian violence unleashed by the war. The researchers noted that their estimates are associated with such “substantial uncertainties” as respondents being asked to recall events that occurred up to 10 years earlier.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 based on claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his government were a threat to the security of the United States and other countries. President Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney accused Hussein of illegally developing and possessing weapons of mass destruction. They also argued that links existed between Hussein’s government and terrorist organizations, including al-Qa’ida, the group responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Most experts now doubt that there was any working relationship between Iraq and al-Qa’ida. The claims that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction also turned out not to be true.

The bombing of the al-Askari shrine on Feb. 22, 2006, led to massive violence between Sunni and Shī`ite Muslims and made it more difficult for U.S.-led forces to provide security for Iraqis. The shrine, in Samarra, is one of the holiest sites to Shī`ite Muslims. (© Dia Hamid, AFP/Getty Images)

Sectarian violence is again on the rise in Iraq. According to United Nations statistics, nearly 5,000 civilians have died in sectarian attacks–primarily Sunni militants on Shi’ite civilians–between January and September of this year. More than 3,000 people died in 2012. Iraqi government officials blame the attacks on al-Qa’ida-linked militants, whom officials suggest are attempting to build on the Sunni minority’s discontent toward what they consider to be second-class treatment by Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government.

Additional World Book articles:

• The War in Iraq: The Military Campaign and Aftermath (a special report)
• The War in Iraq: Shifting Alliances on the World Stage (a special report)
• Iraq: A Quest for Political Identity in a Second Year of War (a special report)
• Iraq 2005 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2006 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2010 (a Back in Time article)

Jan. 6, 2012

A series of bomb attacks in Iraq on January 5 left at least 72 people dead. A suicide bombing targeting Shi’ite pilgrims near the city of Nasiriyah killed 48 people. Nasiriyah is about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. The pilgrims were on their way to the Shi’ite holy city of Karbala. Another 24 people were killed in multiple bombings in Shi’ite neighborhoods in Baghdad.

Sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims have worsened in recent weeks. After the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq in mid-December, the Shi’ite dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the highest Sunni official in Iraq. The government alleged that Hashemi had ordered the assassinations of rival Shi’ite bureaucrats. Hashemi, who fled to the semi-autonomous northern region of Kurdistan, characterized the charges as “political slander.”  His entire political bloc subsquently boycotted the Iraqi parliament and Maliki’s Cabinet.

A new government of Iraq took power in May 2006. This photograph shows Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki, center, being congratulated by former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari. AP/Wide World

Sectarian violence, often carried out by a militant group that calls itself Al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia, left thousands of innocent Iraqis dead in 2006 and 2007. (Mesopotamia was an ancient region in which the world’s earliest civilization developed. It included the area that is now Iraq, eastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey.)

Additional World Book articles

• Al-Qa`ida
• Ashura
• Iraq War
• War in Iraq: A Special Report
• Iraq 2006 (Back in Time)
• Iraq 2007 (Back in Time)

Dec. 15, 2011

The United States marked the official end of the Iraq War on Dec. 15, 2011, at a symbolic ceremony in Baghdad, the capital. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was among the officials who watched as the flag of United States Forces-Iraq was lowered and cased (slipped into a camouflage-colored sleeve) according to Army tradition. In his tribute to coalition forces, Panetta stated, “You will leave with great pride, lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.”

The official flags of the five branches of the United States armed forces: U.S. Air Force, top left; U.S. Navy, top right; U.S. Army, bottom left; U.S. Coast Guard, bottom center; U.S. Marine Corps, bottom right. World Book illustrations

Launched in 2003 by the administration of then-President George W. Bush, the war took the lives of approximately 4,500 U.S. troops and some 250 personnel from allied countries that participated in the effort. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, died in war-related violence. The war also cost the United States more than $1 trillion. The official rationale for the war–that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States–proved not to be true. Although the invasion and march on Baghdad was carried out quickly and capably, the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s fall turned chaotic. Bloody sectarian (of or having to do with a sect; denominationa) and religious rivalries left tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. The American presence in Iraq also fueled homegrown Islamic militancy–al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia–among the country’s minority Sunni population.

The withdrawal of coalition forces marked the fulfillment of an important campaign pledge made by President Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election. On Dec. 14, 2011, President Obama had thanked U.S. troops for their service in Iraq at a ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In October, the president had announced that all U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. However, U.S. forces left ahead of schedule because of a breakdown in talks between the United States and Iraq on maintaining a continuing U.S. military force in the country. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani noted that Iraqis were glad the US troops were leaving: “They have been difficult years,” he told the BBC. “I think we are all happy that the American soldiers are returning home safely to their families and we are also confident that the Iraqi people and their armed forces, police, are in a position now to take care of their own security.”

Additional World Book articles

• Terrorism
• Chemical and Biological Weapons (A Special Report)
• Iraq: A Quest for Political Identity in the Second Year of the War (A Special Report)
• The War in Iraq: the Military Campaign and Aftermath  (A Special Report)
• The War in Iraq: Shifting Alliances on the World Stage (A Special Report)

All U.S. troops in Iraq are to be withdrawn by the end of 2011, President Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference. “After nearly nine years, the long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year,” stated the president, who noted that he had talked to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier in the day and that they were both in agreement about the withdrawal of all American forces.

The Iraq War, launched in March 2003, cost the lives of approximately 4,400 U.S. troops, some 250 coalition troops, and more than $1 trillion. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Iraqis died in war-related violence. The rationale for the war–that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction–proved not to be true.

Iraq War: Invasion by coalition forces

Additional World Book articles:

• George W Bush
• Richard Cheney
• Saddam Hussein
• The War in Iraq and Its Aftermath (a special report)

At least 85 people were killed and hundreds of others injured in a series of bomb attacks in Iraqi cities. Nearly ever region of the country except the Kurdish north was touched by the violence, which appeared to target security forces in both Sunni and Shi`ite areas.  (There are two major divisions of Islam, the Sunni division and Shi`ite devision.) The most deadly of the attacks was in the southeastern city of Al Kut, where two near-simultaneous explosions at a crowded market left more than 40 people dead. In Diyala province, east of Baghdad, at least 13 people were killed in a series of car bombings and shootings. In Tikrit, a man dressed in a police uniform blew himself up just outside the city’s counter-terrorism office. More died in car bombings in Baghdad, the northern city of Kirkuk, in Karbala, a city southwest of Baghdad.

Kirkuk’s provincial governor, Najmaldin Karim, responded to the attacks by calling on American troops to stay in the country past the deadline. Most U.S. troops remaining in Iraq are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011. Critics question whether Iraqi security forces will be ready to take over at the time of the pullout. There were no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but officials pointed to the al-Qa`ida in Mesopotamia terrorism organization.

Iraq

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Special Report (The Military Campaign and Aftermath)
• Back in Time (Iraq 2010)