Mosul is Iraq's second most populous city. It fell to 800–1,500 ISIL militants in June 2014, because of the largely Sunni population's deep distrust of the primarily Shia Iraqi government. It was in the Great Mosque in Mosul that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the beginning of ISIL's self-proclaimed "caliphate" which spans Iraq and Syria.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War.The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland …

Baghdad (/ ˈ b æ ɡ d æ d, b ə ɡ ˈ d æ d /; Arabic: بَغْدَاد [baɣˈdaːd] ()) (Kurdish: بەغداد) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo.It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon.In 762 CE, Baghdad was chosen as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and ...

The turkey is a large species of bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America.There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (M. gallopavo) of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (M. ocellata) of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. This photograph, taken at Deer Island Preserve in Novato, California, depicts a male Rio Grande wild turkey (M. g. …

Background. The 1991 Gulf War never fully ended because no armistice formally ended it. As a result, relations between the United States, the United Nations, and Iraq remained strained, although Saddam Hussein issued formal statements renouncing his invasion of Kuwait and made reparations payments. The US and the United Nations maintained a policy of "containment" …

During the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the United States Army and the CIA committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape and the killing of Manadel al-Jamadi. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse …

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: مُعمّر محمد عبد السلام القذّافي, c. 1942 – 20 October 2011) was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the de facto leader of Libya from 1969 to 2011, first as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People ...

Paris (French pronunciation: ()) is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and …

Date: 2 August 1990 – 17 January 1991 (Operation Desert Shield)17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991 (Operation Desert Storm)(6 months, 3 weeks and 5 days) Location

Iraq War; Part of the Iraq conflict and the War on terror: Clockwise from top: US troops at Uday and Qusay Hussein's hideout; insurgents in northern Iraq; the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square: 20 March 2003 – 15 December 2011 ( …