August 8, 2014

The United States launched air strikes in Iraq today against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a radical Sunni Muslim jihadist group that now control large swathes of Iraq and Syria. The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that U.S. aircraft dropped 500-pound (227-kilogram) laser-guided bombs on artillery that was being used against Kurdish forces defending the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. President Barack Obama authorized the air strikes yesterday, but said he would not send U.S. ground troops back into 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” and will extend from Aleppo in northern Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq.

Yesterday, ISIS captured the city of Qaraqosh in Iraq’s Ninawa province after Kurdish forces withdraw in retreat. As many as 100,000 residents of Ninawa—many of them Christians—fled their homes for the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Qaraqosh—which is largely a Christian city—is 19 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of the city of Mosul, which Isis captured in June. Most Christian families fled Mosul after ISIS gave them an ultimatum to convert, pay a special tax, or face death.

The U.S. Air Force today bombed ISIS artillery outside the Iraqi city of Arbil, which is just east of Mosul. Isis, a radical Sunni jihadist group, is now in control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria. (World Book map)

On August 6, a senior Kurdish official warned that tens of thousands of members of the Yezidi religious minority were trapped without water on a mountain to the west of Mosul. They face slaughter at the hands of Isis militants surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay. The Sunni Jihadists regard the Yezidis as devil worshipers. The Yezidis fled their homes last weekend during an Isis offensive in which it took control of several towns in the northwest as well as an oil field and Iraq’s largest dam. The United Nations has confirmed that it had received credible reports that 40 Yezidi children had died “as a direct consequence of violence, displacement, and dehydration.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today that the world needed to wake up to the threat posed by ISIS: Its “campaign of terror against the innocent, including the Yezidi and Christian minorities, and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide.”

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)

June 30, 2014

The Sunni jihadist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) declared yesterday that it was establishing a caliphate on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. It is to be known simply as “the Islamic State” and will extend from Aleppo in northern Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq. ISIS also proclaimed the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and “leader for Muslims everywhere.” He will be known as “Caliph Ibrahim.” The caliphate is to be governed under strict Shari`ah law. The rebels demand that all Muslims “pledge allegiance” to the new ruler and “reject democracy and other garbage from the West.”

Experts on Islamic history note that the erasing of old colonial-era boundaries between Syria and Iraq is a powerful statement to Muslims–one that is rich in cultural and historic significance. In the words of ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, Muslims have long dreamed of a time when they would “shake off the dust of humiliation and disgrace” and forge a new caliphate out of the chaos and despair of the modern Middle East.

The new caliphate proclaimed by the militant group ISIS includes large sections of northeastern Syria and northern Iraq. (World Book map)

In northern Iraq, the Iraqi military continued yesterday to engage ISIS forces in an offensive to retake the city of Tikrit from the rebels. ISIS seized Tikrit on June 11 as the jihadist army swept across large parts of northwestern Iraq. The heavy fighting has resulted in many casualties on both sides, a BBC correspondent on the ground has reported. According to Human Rights Watch, ISIS destroyed seven Shi`ite places of worship in the predominantly Shi`ite Turkmen city of Tal Afar last week. Tal Afar is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Mosul.

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)

June 18, 2014

As much as 75 percent of Iraq’s enormous Baiji oil refinery, 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Baghdad, reportedly fell to Sunni militants this morning. Forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) had surrounded the refinery for the past week, battling with a battalion of the Iraqi army that that was backed by helicopter gunships. The Baiji refinery is the largest in Iraq. Its capture deprives the Iraq government of an important source of fuel and provides the insurgents with a potentially lucrative source of income. Besides the refinery, the Baiji complex includes a 600-megawatt power plant, which supplies electric power to much of northern Iraq.

On June 16, ISIS militants seized the small city of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. Responding to the situation, the United States Department of Defense ordered the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier, accompanied by two warships, to the Persian Gulf.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry (U.S. Senate)

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. (The Office of Hassan Rouhani)

In Washington, D.C., on Monday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry stated that the United States was open to working with Iran to help stop the insurgents’ advances in Iraq. In Tehran, the Iranian capital, President Hassan Rouhani declared that his government would not rule out working with the United States to try to stabilize Iraq: “We have said that all countries must unite in combating terrorism.” Iran, a close ally of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi`ite-led government, has reportedly sent members of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite military force, into Iraq to help al-Maliki fight the Sunni militants.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Kurdistan
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria 2013 (a Back in Time article)

June 13, 2014

Iraq’s most senior Shi`ite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, today issued a call to arms, telling all able-bodied Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni Islamist insurgents currently on the move toward Baghdad, the capital. The call was made during Friday prayers in Karbala, regarded by Shi`ites as one of Iraq’s holiest cities. The leaders of the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have announced their intention of capturing Karbala and destroying the city’s Shi`ite shrines.

Yesterday, Kurdish forces moved in to safeguard Kirkuk after Iraqi government troops again dropped their weapons and fled. Kurds have long claimed Kirkuk as their capital, a strategic important oil city in Iraq’s Kurdish-majority north. The Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, are disciplined and highly loyal to their leaders and cause–an autonomous and independent Kurdish state.

In Samarra, Sunni militants were currently deployed in positions 3 miles (5 kilometers) east and north of the city–home of the Al-Askari Mosque, a revered Shi`ite shrine that the Sunni militants have threatened to destroy. To the south, emboldened ISIS forces moved closer to Baghdad. In the capital, Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki’s demands for emergency powers stalled yesterday because too few members of parliament showed up to form a quorum.

The 2006 bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque, a revered Shi`ite shrine, presumably by Sunni insurgents known as Al-Qaida in Iraq, led to a bloodbath between Sunni and Shi`ite Muslims. Al-Qaida in Iraq morphed into today’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.(ISIS). (AP/Wide World)

A Times of London correspondent in the region reported that Iran, an ally of al-Maliki’s Shi`ite-led government has sent Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to fight the Sunni militants. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that Iran would act to combat “the violence and terrorism” of ISIS.

Speaking to reporters about the situation in Iraq, United States President Barack Obama noted yesterday that his national security advisers were looking at “all options,” including military action. However, an Obama administration spokesperson later stated that deploying American ground troops in Iraq was not an option.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Kurdistan
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria 2013 (a Back in Time article)

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)

July 22, 2013

Attacks on two large prisons outside Baghdad resulted in the deaths of at least 25 Iraqi security guards this morning. At the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia, broke out as the militants carried out their military-style assault. (Al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia is an Iraqi offshoot of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization. In Iraq, the organization is made up of Sunni insurgents.)

Sectarian violence is once again on the rise in Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul. (World Book map).

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a suicide car-bomber targeting Iraqi security forces left another 22 soldiers and 3 passers-by dead today. A separate attack in western Mosul killed 4 policemen.

Experts on the situation in Iraq note that the prison attacks on Taji and Abu Ghraib, which began late on July 21, are the latest indication of the deteriorating state of security in the country. They also suggest that Sunni militants are re-gaining momentum in their insurgency against Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-dominated government. The latest surge of attacks in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 450 Iraqis since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on July 10. Sectarian violence in Iraq has not been this bad since 2007 and 2008.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq War
• Iraq: a Quest for Political Identity in a Second Year of War (a special report)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2008 (a Back in Time article)

May 20, 2013

A series of explosions rocked central and southern Iraq today, killing at least 100 people. Multiple bombings at bus stations and markets in primarily Shi’ite neighborhoods in Baghdad left dozens of people dead and many others injured. Bombing attacks were also made in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, and in Samarra, north of Baghdad. In a separate incident in western Anbar province, 10 policemen kidnapped on May 18 were found dead today.

The bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra in 2006 triggered massive violence between Sunni and Shi`ite Muslims in Iraq. The same pattern is emerging in 2013, with Sunni and Shi'ite militants bombing each other's mosques. (© Dia Hamid, AFP/Getty Images)

The surge of sectarian tensions over the last 30 days is the worst violence seen in Iraq in five years. Two bombings apparently targeting Sunnis in Iraqi towns near Baghdad left 37 people dead and dozens of others injured on May 17. That same day, some 30 people were killed when two bombs were detonated outside a Sunni mosque in the city of Baqubah, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad. On May 16, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shi’ite mosque in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing 8 people.

Security experts suggest that the latest surge in sectarian violence is being carried out be Sunni Islamist insurgents determined to bring down the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The experts have voiced fears that the country could revert back to the levels of sectarian violence last seen in 2005 through 2007.

Additional World Book articles

• Iraq war
• Islam (divisions of)
• Iraq 2005 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2006 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)

March 19, 2013

A wave of deadly bombings in and around Baghdad, primarily in Shi’ite Muslim neighborhoods, left at least 48 people dead and hundreds injured on the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The coordinated attacks included at least 15 car bombings, multiple roadside bombings, and shootings by snipers, all during the morning rush hour in the Iraqi capital. The deadliest of the attacks, which took place outside the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, killed 7 people and injured at least 20 others. Another 6 people were killed and 15 others wounded when a bomb exploded outside a restaurant near the main entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. embassy is located.

Baghdad (AP/Wide World)

A militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq, which includes al-Qa’ida in Iraq, is known to have accelerated its attacks on Shi’ite targets in an attempt to revive the secular insurgency that left tens of thousands of people dead between 2005 and 2008. Their aim is to bring down the Shi’ite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Iraqi government is largely deadlocked, with Maliki at odds with Kurds in the north, most Sunni groups, and even factions within his own Shi’ite community. Iraq was controlled for years by that country’s Sunni minority, under the Baath government of dictator Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown in 2003.

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq history
• Iraq 2005 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2006 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2008 (a Back in Time article)
• 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)
• The Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)

February 18, 2013

A wave of car bombings in Shi’ite neighborhoods in and around Baghdad yesterday left 37 people dead and some 125 others wounded. Al-Qa’ida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and al-Qa’ida and other Sunni extremist groups have ramped up attacks on Shi’ite Muslims as a way of bringing down the Shi’ite-led government. At least 200 Iraqis have been killed in attacks targeting Shi’ites since January.

Iraq’s Sunni minority claims that Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki and his political allies have undermined Sunni politicians to monopolize power. In November, an Iraqi court sentenced Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi to death for the third time on charges that he instigated terrorist attacks on Shi’ite pilgrims. All verdicts were delivered in absentia because Hashemi fled Iraq in 2011 and is living in exile in Turkey. Al-Hashemi claims that his long-time rival Prime Minister Maliki is behind the charges, which he alleges are politically motivated.

On February 15, tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims rallied in several Iraqi cities to protest what they describe as unfair treatment by the Shi’ite-led government. In a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, some 3,000 lawyers recently took to the streets, demanding an end to judicial corruption and prisoner abuse in Iraq’s prisons.

Iraqis pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein after U.S. forces entered Baghdad in 2003. Iraqis had high hopes after the U.S. military deposed Hussein in 2003, but 10 years later, many Iraqis are living in deplorable conditions. (AP/Wide World)

In recent weeks, both Sunni and Shit’te Iraqis alike have begun to openly protest the wretched conditions and bitter sectarian conflict they have endured since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew the Saddam Hussein government. Demonstrators have stormed government buildings in several cities to protest political corruption and shortages of food, electric power, and jobs. The Reuters news agency reported: “. . .  years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq’s infrastructure remains severely damaged. The country suffers a chronic water shortage, electricity supply is intermittent and sewage collects in the streets.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Iraq 2006 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2007 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq: a Quest for Political Identity in a Second Year of 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)