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Rabia, Iraq
Rabia (Arabic: ربيعة) is a town in the north-west of Iraq, near the border crossing to the town of Al-Yarubiyah in Syria. Both towns are inhabited by the Shammar Arab tribe. Rabia is located on the road between Al-Shaddadah in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. The town's primary economic sector is illegal smuggling, though there are legitimate freight and human migration between Syria and Iraq. Migrants are scanned using retina scanning technology. In August 2003, Syria inaugurated the Rabia railway station. It was announced that there would be two goods' trains a week, with a passenger service to follow. As of October 2009, the passenger train was arriving at the Rabiyah station on Wednesday afternoons in the direction of Damascus and on Saturday mornings in the direction of Mosul. The standard gauge railway line from Rabia, part of the Baghdad Railway, is linked to Baghdad via Mosul. The border crossing was redesigned during the Iraq troop surge operation in 2007 and subseque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nineveh Governorate
Nineveh Governorate (; , ) is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Before 1976, it was called ''Mosul Province'' and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate. The second largest city is Tal Afar, which has an almost exclusively Turkmen population. An ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse region, it was partly conquered by ISIS in 2014. Iraqi government forces retook the city of Mosul in 2017. Recent history and administration Its two cities endured the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and emerged unscathed. In 2004, however, Mosul and Tal Afar were the scenes of fierce battles between US-led troops and Iraqi insurgents. The insurgents moved to Nineveh after the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. After the invasion, the military of the province was led by (then Major Genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smuggling
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, social scientists define smuggling as the purposeful movement across a border in contravention to the relevant legal frameworks. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, heists, chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, import restrictions, export restrictions, providing contraband to prison inmates, or the theft of the items being smuggled. Smuggling is a common theme in literature, from Bizet's opera ''Carmen'' to the James Bond spy books (and later films) '' Diamonds Are Forever'' and '' Goldfinger''. Etymology The verb ''smuggle'', from Low German ''smuggeln'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jihadists
Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Islamic movements that seek to establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation is an efficient and theologically legitimate method of socio-political change towards an Islamic system of governance. The term "jihadism" has been applied to various Islamic extremist or Islamist individuals and organizations with militant ideologies based on the classical Islamic notion of '' lesser jihad''. Jihadism has its roots in the late 19th- and early 20th-century ideological developments of Islamic revivalism, which further developed into Qutbism and Salafi jihadism related ideologies during the 20th and 21st centuries. Jihadist ideologues envision ''jihad'' as a "revolutionary struggle" against the international order to unite the Muslim world under Islamic law. The Islamist organizations that participated in the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979 to 1989 reinforced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ISIS
Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom (), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peshmerga
The Peshmerga () are the internal security forces of Kurdistan Region. According to the Constitution of Iraq, regional governments are responsible for "the establishment and organization of the internal security forces for the region such as police, security forces, and guards of the region". Other Kurdish security agencies include the Zêrevanî (gendarmerie), Asayish ( security and counterterrorism service), and the '' Parastin û Zanyarî'' (intelligence agency). The Peshmerga's history dates back to the 18th century, when they began as a tribal paramilitary border guard under the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Kurds. By the 19th century, they had evolved into a disciplined and well-trained guerrilla force. Formally, the Peshmerga are under the command of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government. In practice, however, the Peshmerga's structure is largely divided and controlled separately by the two Iraqi Kurdish political parties: the Democr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraq Troop Surge
The Iraq War troop surge of 2007, commonly known as the troop surge, or simply the surge, refers to the George W. Bush administration's 2007 increase in the number of U.S. military combat troops in Iraq in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Governorate. The surge was developed under the working title "The New Way Forward" and was announced in January 2007 by Bush during a television speech. Bush ordered the deployment of more than 20,000 soldiers into Iraq (five additional brigades), and sent the majority of them into Baghdad. He also extended the tour of most of the Army troops in country and some of the Marines already in Anbar. The President described the overall objective as establishing a "unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror." The major element of the strategy was a change in focus for the U.S. military "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the Arab world, most populous cities in the Middle East and Arab world and forms 22% of the Demographics of Iraq, country's population. Spanning an area of approximately , Baghdad is the capital of its Baghdad Governorate, governorate and serves as Iraq's political, economic, and cultural hub. Founded in 762 AD by Al-Mansur, Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and became its most notable development project. The city evolved into a cultural 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 multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". For much of the Abbasid era, duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Known colloquially in Syria as () and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada, Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ancient Old Assyrian Empire, Assyrian city of Nineveh—once the List of largest cities throughout history, largest city in the world—on its east side. Due to its strategic and central location, the city has traditionally served as one of the hubs of international commerce and travel in the region. It is considered as one of the historically and culturally significant cities of the Arab world. The North Mesopotamian dialect of Arabic commonly known as North Mesopotamian Arabic, ''Moslawi'' is named after Mosul, and is widely spoken in the region. Together, with the Nineveh Plains, Mosul is a historical center of the Assyrian people, Assyrians. The surrounding region is ethnically and religiously diverse; a large majority of the city is A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Districts Of Iraq
Iraq's 19 governorates of Iraq, governorates are subdivided into 120 districts (''kaza, qada''). The district usually bears the same name as the district capital. The districts are listed below, by governorate (with capital in parentheses): Al Anbar Governorate * Al-Qa'im District (Al-Qa'im (town), Al-Qa'im) * Ar-Rutba District (Ar-Rutba) * Anah District (Anah) * Fallujah District (Fallujah) * Haditha District (Haditha) * Hīt District (Hīt) * Ramadi District (Ramadi) * Rawah District (Rawah) Muthanna Governorate * Al-Khidhir District (Al-Khidhir) * Al-Rumaitha District (Al-Rumaitha) * Al-Salman District (Al-Salman) * Al-Samawa District (Samawa) Qadisiyyah Governorate * Afaq District (Afaq) * Al-Shamiya District (Al-Shamiya) * Diwaniya District (Diwaniya) * Hamza District (Hamza) Babil Governorate * Al-Mahawil District (Al-Mahawil) * Al-Musayab District (Al-Musayab) * Hashimiya District (Hashimiya) * Hilla District (Hilla) Baghdad Governorate * Administrati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
