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IRAQ PROFILE: A CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS |
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|---|---|
| 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 |
