Timeline of Iraq History



IRAQ PROFILE: A CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS

DATE EVENT
Violence Intensifies
2014 (June) The jihadists of Al Qaeda gained control of the northern city of Tikrit on June 11, 2014.
2014 (January) Pro-al-Qaeda fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant infiltrate Fallujah and Ramadi after months of mounting violence in mainly-Sunni Anbar province. Government forces recapture Ramadi but face entrenched rebels in Fallujah, in the heaviest clashes in years.
2013 (September) Mass killing at Camp Ashraf housing Iranian exiles – members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran.
2013 (October) Parliamentary elections set for April 2014.
2013 (July) At least 500 prisoners, mainly senior al-Qaeda members, escape from Taji and Abu Ghraib jails in a mass breakout.
2013 (December) At least 35 people killed in twin bombing of Baghdad churches on Christmas Day.
2013 (April) Troops storm a Sunni anti-government protest camp in Hawija near Kirkuk, leaving more than 50 dead and prompting outrage and clashes in other towns.
2013 Regional parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan, won comfortably by Kurdistan Democratic Party.
2013 Series of bombings hits Kurdistan capital Irbil in the first such attack since 2007. Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq says it was responding to alleged Iraqi Kurdish support for Kurds fighting jihadists in Syria.
US Pull out
2012 (September) Fugitive Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi is sentenced to be hanged for murder.
2012 (November) Iraq cancels a $4.2bn deal to buy arms from Russia because of concerns about alleged corruption within the Iraqi government.
2012 (March) Tight security for Arab League summit in Baghdad. It is the first major summit to be held in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
2012 (April) Oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan halted amid row with central government over contracts with foreign firms.
2011 (December) US completes troop pull-out.
New political groupings
2011 (February) Oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan resume,
2011 (April 9th) Thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad mark the eighth anniversary of the fall of Hussein’s regime with a protest against American troop presence there.
2010 (September) Syria and Iraq restore diplomatic ties a year after breaking them off.
2010 (September 1st) Operation Iraqi Freedom is renamed Operation New Dawn, to reflect the reduced role U.S. troops will play in securing the country.
2010 (March 7th) Iraqi legislative elections are held. The Iraqiya coalition, led by former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, wins the most seats in Parliament.
2010 (December 15th) The U.N. Security Council votes to free Iraq from sanctions that started during the Saddam Hussein era.
2010 (August 19th) The last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq.
2010 (April 25th) The first commercial flight from Iraq to the United Kingdom in 20 years takes off from Baghdad.
2009 (October) Two car bombs near the Green Zone in Baghdad kill at least 155 people
2009 (July) New opposition forces make strong gains in elections to the regional parliament of Kurdistan, but the governing KDP and PUK alliance retains a reduced majority. Masoud Barzani (KDP) is re-elected in the presidential election.
Blackwater shootings, Turkish raids
2009 (June 30th) U.S. troops pull back from Iraqi cities and towns and Iraqi troops take over the responsibility for security operations
2009 (January 1st) The U.S. military hands over control of Baghdad’s “Green Zone” to Iraqi authorities.
2008 (september) US forces hand over control of the western province of Anbar to the Iraqi government
2008 (March 3-4) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, visits Iraq for the first time,
2008 (January 12th) The Iraqi government votes to allow former Baathist party members into government positions.
2008 (December 4th) The Iraqi Presidential Council approves a security agreement that paves the way for the U.S. to withdraw completely from Iraq by 2011.
2007 (september) Controversy over private security contractors after Blackwater security guards allegedly fire at civilians in Baghdad, killing 17.
Sectarian violence
2007 (September 3rd) Basra is turned over to local authorities after British troops withdraw from their last military base in Iraq, to the airport outside the city.
2007 (March) Insurgents detonate three trucks with toxic chlorine gas in Falluja and Ramadi, injuring hundreds.
2007 (February) A bomb in Baghdad’s Sadriya market kills more than 130 people.
2006 (December 30th) Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hanged a few minutes after 6 am Baghdad time
2006 (November) Iraq and Syria restore diplomatic relations after nearly a quarter century.
2006 (April 22nd) President Jalal Talabani names Nuri al-Maliki Prime Minister-designate
2006 (February) A bomb attack on an important Shia shrine in Samarra unleashes a wave of sectarian violence
Insurgency intensifies
2005 (October 15th) Iraqi citizens vote in a national referendum for a draft new Iraqi constitution.
2005 (June) Massoud Barzani is sworn in as regional president of Iraqi Kurdistan.
2005 (January 30th) Some 8 million vote in elections for a Transitional National Assembly.
2005 (December 15th) Millions of Iraqis participate in an election to choose a 275-seat Parliament that will serve a four-year term
2005 (April 6-7) Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is selected the country’s president by the transitional national assembly. Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shia, is named as prime minister.
2005 (28th February) At least 114 people are killed by a car bomb in Hilla, south of Baghdad, in the worst single such incident since the US-led invasion.
2004 (November) Major US-led offensive against insurgents in Falluja
2004 (June) US hands sovereignty to interim government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
2004 (June 30th) The Coalition turns over legal control of Saddam Hussein and 11 other former top Iraqi officials to the interim Iraqi government.
2004 (July 1st) Saddam Hussein makes his first appearance in court.
2004 (August) U.S. and Iraqi forces battle insurgents in Najaf
2003 (May 22nd) UNSC pproves Resolution 1483, lifting sanctions against Iraq and reaffirms the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. It also acknowledges the U.S. and Great Britain’s right to occupy Iraq.
2003 (July 22nd) Uday and Qusay Hussein, President Hussein’s sons, are killed by U.S. forces.
2003 (August) Suicide truck bomb wrecks UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello
2003 (21st November) The oil-for-food program ends
2003 (13th December) Hussein is captured in a “spider hole” near a hut in Tikrit.
Iran-Iraq war
2013 (March 19th) George W. Bush announces that U.S. and coalition forces have begun military action against Iraq
2003 (March 17th) President George W. Bush issues an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his family, leave Iraq within 48 hours or face military action
2003 (January 27th) Chief inspectors Mohammad ElBaradei and Hans Blix brief the U.N. Security Council on Iraqi compliance with inspections.
2003 (April 9th) Coalition forces take Baghdad.
2002 (November 27th) U.N. inspectors begin working in Iraq.
2002 (November 13th) Iraq agrees to comply with U.N. Resolution 1441.
1999 (February) Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, spiritual leader of the Shia community, is assassinated in Najaf
1998 (Dec 16th) Great Britain and the United States launch air strikes against Iraq.
1996 Iraqi forces capture Irbil
1995 (April 14th) UNSC Resolution 986 allows the partial resumption of Iraq’s oil exports to buy food and medicine
1993 (June) US forces launch a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad
1992 (August) A no-fly zone, which Iraqi planes are not allowed to enter, is set up in southern Iraq, south of latitude 32 degrees north
1991 (March 3rd) Iraq accepts terms of ceasefire
1991 (17th January) Operation Desert Storm begins (US & coalition forces begin aerial bombardment of Iraq)
1991 Kuwait is liberated
1990 (August 2nd) Iraq invades Kuwait, prompting what becomes known as the first Gulf War
1988 (March 16th) Iraq attacks Kurdish town of Halabjah with poison gas, killing thousands
1988 (August 20th) A ceasefire comes into effect between Iran & Iraq
1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war
1982 Export pipeline via Syria closed
1981 Israel attacks an Iraqi nuclear research centre at Tuwaythah near Baghdad
1950-2000
1979 Saddam Hussein succeeds Al-Bakr as president
1974 Iraq grants limited autonomy to Kurdish region.
1973 (October) Iraq fights Israel in the Yom Kippur war
1972 Iraq nationalises the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)
1972 A 15 year Treaty of Friendship & Co-operation is signed between Iraq & the Soviet Union
1968 (July 17th) Major General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath party becomes Iraq’s new president
1963 The new Baath government is overthrown
1958 (July 14th) Iraq is declared a republic.
1900-1950
1945 (Dec 21st) Iraq becomes a member of the United Nations.
1939-1945 World War II. Britain re-occupies Iraq.
1933 – 1939 King Ghazi rules as a figurehead after King Faysal’s death
1932 (October 3rd) Iraq becomes an independent nation with Baghdad as its capital, and is admitted to the League of Nations
1927 Discovery of oil North of Kirkuk
1921-1926 Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad & Basra are combined by Great Britain to form modern Iraq
1921 Hashemite king Faysal, son of Hussein Bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, is crowned Iraq’s first king.
1920 Mandate for Iraq & Palestine awarded to Great Britain by the League of Nations.
1914 – 1918 The Ottomons were driven from Baghdad for most of World War I
1913 Boundary with Kuwait defined by Anglo-Turkish Convention
1912 Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) formed, concession given to the British by 1914
1500-1900
1831-1914 Ottoman govern Baghdad directly
1747-1831 Mamluks (former slave military cadre) govern Baghdad under Ottoman Turk protection
1632 Ottomans re-take Baghdad
1609 Ottomans lose baghdad to the Persians
1536 Ottoman Empire seizes Baghdad

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