#Saddam hussein capture medical exam series#

Iran was the first to provide military assistance, partly because Sunni jihadis came within 25 miles of its border. The rise of ISIS also led to foreign intervention a second time. More than 60 armed groups eventually merged under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shia world’s top marja, responded to the Sunni jihadis movement with a fatwa calling Iraqis to take up to arms. Tens of thousands of men, mostly Shia, joined new and old militias, many supported by Iran. The rise of ISIS further split Iraqi society. It instituted a reign of terror that included rape, abductions, executions, mass murder, pillaging, extortion, seizure of state resources, and smuggling. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the creation of an Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and named himself caliph. By June 2014, ISIS took control of a third of the country. Despite having far more numbers, the Iraqi army crumbled. Its militia captured Fallujah in December 2013. In 2013, it expanded into Syria and rebranded again as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The underground extremist movement recruited thousands of Sunnis, including beyond Iraq’s borders. The Shia-dominated government’s failure to follow through with the Sunnis allowed ISI to reconstitute. Maliki’s relationship with the Kurds also deteriorated.

The Sunnis accused then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of exclusionary sectarian policies. By early 2013, tens of thousands of Sunnis participated in anti-government protests in Ramadi, Fallujah, Samarra, Mosul and Kirkuk. The third phase played out between 20, as the government of Iraq did not follow through on promises to employ and pay the minority Sunnis who had fought the jihadis. By 2011, the United States opted to withdraw from Iraq, with an understanding from the Baghdad government that it would incorporate the Sunni tribes into the Iraqi security forces to contain the sectarian divide.

The collaboration initially contained ISI. They turned against the jihadi movement and started working with U.S. The surge overlapped with the so-called “Awakening” among Iraq’s Sunni tribes. military surge of an additional 30,000 troops-adding to 130,000 already deployed-to help stem the escalating bloodshed. The second phase, from 2007 to 2011, was marked by the U.S. The group subsequently rebranded as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).

#Saddam hussein capture medical exam series#

He was the first in a series of jihadi leaders determined to foment hostilities among Iraq’s ethnic and religious communities. He was linked to bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. The tensions were exploited by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian jihadi who had fought in Afghanistan and moved to Iraq to lead al-Qaida in Iraq. The blast destroyed the famous gold dome and triggered violence across Iraq for years. The transition also witnessed the outbreak of sectarian tensions, symbolized by the bombing of the al-Askari shrine, a Shia holy site, in early 2006. Sunnis, who had dominated the state under Saddam, maintained the key position of parliamentary speaker but lost many other powers. Kurds, who had long demanded autonomy from Baghdad, became part of the state the constitution recognized autonomy for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and formal status of its Peshmerga forces. For the first time, Iraq also had a Kurdish president. For the first time, the Shia majority claimed the prime minister’s slot and had sufficient leverage to control key ministries and other levers of the state. The political balance of power-dominated for centuries by Sunnis-shifted dramatically. In 2005, Iraqis voted on a new constitution, which introduced individual rights, including for religious and ethnic minorities. The transition included building new parties, recruiting and training new military forces, creating nascent civil society, and drafting new laws. military was responsible for national security, but at least 100,000 people died during its eight-year intervention (some estimates were as high as half a million). As a self-declared occupying force, the U.S. The first phase, the initial transition between 20, started with a U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Iraq has evolved through four rocky phases. Iraq suffered through a civil war, political turmoil, widespread corruption, sectarian tensions and an extremist insurgency that seized a third of the country.

Second, disbanding the military-alienating hundreds of thousands of trained men with no alternative-left a security void. decision to bar the long-ruling Baath Party-and the way it was implemented-created a political vacuum. After Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Iraq’s new leaders struggled to chart a democratic course after decades of dictatorship.