HOME





December 2019 United States Airstrikes In Iraq And Syria
On 29 December 2019, the United States conducted airstrikes against Kata'ib Hezbollah's weapons depots and command centers in Iraq and Syria, reportedly killing at least 25 militiamen and wounding 55 more. The U.S. Department of Defense said the operation was in retaliation for repeated attacks on Iraqi military bases hosting Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) coalition forces, particularly the 27 December 2019 attack on a Kirkuk airbase that left an American civilian contractor dead. Kata'ib Hezbollah, an extremist Shi'ite militia funded by Iran, denied any responsibility for the attacks. The unilateral U.S. airstrikes were condemned by the Iraqi government, Iraqi Armed Forces personnel, and Iran, and culminated in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad being attacked by Iraqi militiamen and their supporters on 31 December 2019. This in turn led to a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020, killing Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Kata'ib Hezbollah commande ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Embassy Of The United States, Baghdad
The Embassy of the United States of America in Baghdad () is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America in the Republic of Iraq. Chargé d'affaires ad interim Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau is currently the chief of mission. At , it is the largest U.S. diplomatic mission compound; nearly equal in area size to the Vatican City. The embassy complex is about 2.5 times the size of the Embassy of the United States, Beirut, which is the second-largest U.S. diplomatic mission abroad, as well as over three times the size of the Embassy of the United States, Islamabad, which is the third-largest U.S. diplomatic mission abroad. The embassy opened in January 2009 following a series of construction delays. It replaced the previous embassy, which opened July 1, 2004 in Baghdad's Green Zone in a former Palace of Saddam Hussein.
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

K-1 Air Base
K-1 Air Base, or Kaywan, is a former Iraqi Air Force base and military base in the Kirkuk Governorate of Iraq. It was captured by Multi-National Force – Iraq, Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, later served as the headquarters of the 12th Division (Iraq), 12th Division of the Iraqi Army. In 2014 it was taken over by the Kurds, Kurdish Peshmerga. On October 16, 2017, the base was taken back by Iraqi special forces during the Battle of Kirkuk (2017), Battle of Kirkuk. History K-1 was a primary air base for the Iraqi Air Force prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It is named after the pumping station at mile 0 (at the Kirkuk oil field) of the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline that was commissioned in 1934. Iraq war 2003–2011 It was used as a Contingency Operating Location by the United States Army after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 U.S. invasion. During the American presence in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi forces used training centers at K1 as hubs for combined instr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Iran Nuclear Deal Framework
The Iran nuclear deal framework was a preliminary framework agreement reached in 2015 between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of world powers: the P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China–Iran trade relations, China—plus Germany) and the European Union. Based on the April 2015 Iran nuclear deal framework, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 and EU was announced on July 14, 2015 in Vienna. Background Negotiations for a framework deal over the nuclear program of Iran took place between the foreign ministers of the countries at a series of meetings held from March 26 to April 2, 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. On April 2, the talks came to a conclusion and a press conference was held by Federica Mogherini (High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and Mohammad Javad Zarif (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran) to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. Born into a wealthy family in the New York City borough of Queens, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became the president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and began acquiring and building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He launched side ventures, many licensing the Trump name, and filed for six business bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s. From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show ''The Apprentice (American TV series), The Apprentice'', bolstering his fame as a billionaire. Presenting himself as a political outsider, Trump won the 2016 United States presidential e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Islam In Iraq
Islam in Iraq has a rich complicated history that has come to be over almost 1,400 years, since the Prophet Muhammad lived and died in 632 CE. As one of the first places in the world to accept Islam, Iraq is mostly Muslim nation, with about 98% of the people identifying as Muslim. There are the two main branches of Islam in Iraq: Shia Islam, which is practiced by about 61% of Muslims and Sunni Islam, which is practiced by about 35%. Baghdad, which was once the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and a center of Islamic scholarship, is one of the most important religious cities in Iraq. It is very important to both Shia and Sunni communities. The Kadhimiya neighborhood in Baghdad is famous for having the shrines of two important Shia Imams. Karbala, on the other hand, is respected for being the site of the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD, which had a significant impact on Shia beliefs and practices. The tomb of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shia Imam and the fourth caliph, is in Najaf, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shia Islam In Iraq
Shia Islam in Iraq () has a history going back to the times of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first imam of Shia Islam and fourth caliph of Sunni Islam who moved the capital of the early caliphate from Medina to Kufa (or Najaf) two decades after the death of Muhammad. Shia Muslims are generally considered to constitute the majority of the Iraqi population with varying estimates over their percentages, such as a lower estimate reporting it to be between 55% and 60%, and a higher estimate ranging between 64% and 69% of the population of Iraq. Iraq is the location of the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, pilgrimage sites for millions of Shia Muslims. Iraqi Shia Muslims belong to various ethnicities, although they all follow the Twelver sect, with the vast majority being Usuli and a small minority being Akhbari. Historically, there were practices of Isma'ilism among Musha'sha' Arabs, Zaydism among Kurds, and Ibrahimiyya among Turkmen, which all declined. The Twelver sect had always been ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Iranian Intervention In Iraq (2014–present)
The Iranian intervention in Iraq has its roots in the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, when the infrastructure of the Iraqi armed forces, as well as intelligence, were disbanded in a process called " de-Ba'athification" which allowed militias with close ties to Tehran to join the newly reconstituted army. The intervention reached its peak following the advance of the Islamic State into northern Iraq in mid-2014. Iran began to provide military aid to counter the militant advance. Iran provided technical advisers to the Iraqi government and weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga. Several sources, among them ''Reuters'', believe that since mid-June 2014, Iranian combat troops are in Iraq, which Iran denies. The Iraqi Shia militias Kata'ib Hezbollah ("Hezbollah Brigades") and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq ("League of the Righteous"), funded and trained by Iran, fought alongside the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga in retaking territory from ISIL. Background US invasion of I ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

War In Iraq (2013–2017)
The War in Iraq (2013–2017) was an armed conflict between Iraq and its allies and the Islamic State. Following December 2013, the Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013), insurgency escalated into a full-scale war following Anbar campaign (2013–2014), clashes in parts of western Iraq, which culminated in the Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014), Islamic State offensive into Iraq in June 2014, leading to the capture of the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and other cities in western and northern Iraq by the Islamic State. Between 4–9 June 2014, the Fall of Mosul, city of Mosul was attacked and later fell; following this, Prime Minister of Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a national state of emergency on 10 June. However, despite the security crisis, Council of Representatives of Iraq, Iraq's parliament did not allow Maliki to declare a state of emergency; many legislators boycotted the session because they opposed expanding the prime minister's powers. Ali Ghaidan, a former mili ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Islamic State Of Iraq And The Levant
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied significant territory in Iraq and Syria in 2013, but lost most of it in 2019. In 2014, the group proclaimed itself to be a worldwide caliphate, and claimed religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide, a claim not accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries. By the end of 2015, its self-declared caliphate ruled an area with a population of about 12 million, where they enforced their extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters. After a grinding conflict with American, Iraqi, and Kurdish forces, IS lost co ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis
Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim ( ', 16 November 1954 – 3 January 2020), better known by his ''kunya'' Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (), was an Iraqi paramilitary leader and former chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). At the time of his death, he was deputy chairman of the PMC. From 1977, he was an opponent of Saddam Hussein. He became the commander of volunteer militias that grew from the need to combat ISIS, including the Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitary group, which is designated a terror organisation by the governments of Japan, the US and the UAE; and prior to that worked with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) against Saddam's regime. Muhandis was on the United States list of designated terrorists since 2009. Allegations of terrorism have been levelled against him over his activities in Kuwait in the 1980s. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 2007 by a court in Kuwait for his involvement in the 1983 Kuwait bombings. However, this has been d ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]