X-Nico

15 unusual facts about Iraq


16 June 2013 Iraq attacks

Two civilians were killed and nine injured in a bombing in Mahmoudiyah, while a blast in Tuz Khormato killed two police officers and injured another, and four people were injured in an attack near Mahaweel.

2004 Baghdad refusal of orders

Returning to Tallil Air Base, the same company was ordered to take their cargo to Taji, north of Baghdad.

2007 Balad aircraft crash

The 2007 Balad aircraft crash was a 9 January 2007 airplane incident involving an Antonov An-26 airliner, which crashed while attempting to land at the U.S. military base in Balad, Iraq.

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan

He built a new city, Wasit, which he used as a garrison city for his Syrian troops and also his private residence.

Camp Taji

Although the PX facility is large, it remains poorly stocked in comparison to Baghdad and Balad due to supply issues.

Foreign relations of Jordan

These relations were damaged when Jordan proclaimed its neutrality during the Gulf War and maintained relations with Iraq.

International counter-terrorism operations of Russia

The Delhi summit on security took place on February 14, 2007 with the foreign ministers of China, India, and Russia meeting in Hyderabad House, Delhi, India to discuss terrorism, drug trafficking, reform of the United Nations, and the security situations in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

International Relief and Development Inc.

In Iraq, USAID funded $644 million to IRD to implement the Community Stabilization Program, a jobs and public works program Iraq.

John Maples, Baron Maples

The Arab bank was based in London, and fell prey to the subsequent Arms to Iraq scandals and collapsed, bankrupting its depositors.

Khazar University Department of Eastern Languages and Religions Studies

The Department is distinguished among other departments of the University with young and dynamic, domestic and foreign academic staff members with Ph.D. degree and scientific research experience obtained abroad (from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Japan, USA and EU countries).

Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri

Ibn Dawud was known to have been involved in public debates with the Mu'tazila, an ancient Muslim sect, in a court of the caliph Al-Muwaffaq in Wasit.

Oscar Hilman

By improving the living conditions of Filipinos in the military base in Balad, Iraq, he was, in effect, also serving his native land.

Sikrehra Khola

Sayyed Abul Farah Wasti was a descendant of Zaid bin Ali, who came to India from Wasit, Iraq.

The Gifted Students' School-Iraq

The school's original location was in Hayy Al-Jami'a, Baghdad, but it was relocated with Al-Mansor High School in Al-Mansor, Baghdad after being targeted by Al-Qaeda.Now the school has three other campuses in Iraq in An-Najaf, Al-Basrah, and Mosul.

United States Navy Customs

From there, each company then heads to its base of operations, either at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, the Kuwait Naval Base, Camp Patriot, Ali Al Salem, and Camp Beuhring, Camp Virginia or they stay at ALSA for further training before deploying to Balad, Iraq or Afghanistan.


14th Battalion, Maratha Light Infantry

In the last weeks of the war in Europe, during February 1945, the 14th Battalion proceeded overseas for service in Iraq (Mesopotamian campaign).

192d Airlift Squadron

Later, the RF-4Cs were repeated diverted from other photographic missions to go and look for Scud launchers hiding in western Iraq.

302d Fighter Squadron

With the transition of AFRES to Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), the squadron deployed several times since late 1992 to Turkey to help enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq and to Italy to support UN air operations in the Balkans.

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

The best friend of Adrian's son Glenn and a private in the British Army, through which he is deployed to Iraq.

Aiham Alsammarae

He has been an active member of the Iraqi National List (headed by Iyad Allawi) and has fought hard for political reconciliation among Iraq's political parties as well as against the policy of de-Ba'athification, since his resignation as Minister of Electricity.

Ali Rahimi

Frans van Anraat is the person responsible for the delivery of chemicals to the Iraqi regime that were used in bombing the Kurds in the North of Iraq and the Kurdish city of Sardasht.

Anti-communist mass killings

In 1963, a coup in Iraq overthrew Abd al-Karim Qasim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Hashemite Iraqi monarchy.

Arvand Free Zone

The Arvand Freezone is a 155 square kilometer industrial and security zone that surrounds Khorramshahr, Abadan, and Minoo Island along the Arvand waterway (known as Shatt al-Arab in Iraq) in Khuzestan Province, Iran.

Avraham Biran

Biran returned to Jerusalem in 1935, serving as a Fellow in the American Schools of Oriental Research until 1937, participating in a number of archaeological digs, including Tel Halifa near Aqaba, digs near the cities of Mosul and Baghdad in Iraq, Irbid in Jordan and Ras El Haruba outside Jerusalem.

Baha' al-Dawla

Baha' al-Dawla (meaning "Splendour of the State"; died December 22, 1012) was the Buyid amir of Iraq (988–1012), along with Fars and Kerman (998–1012).

Battle of Qarabagh

He sent two detachments; one to take possession of Iraq-i-Ajam, the other of Fars.

Bremer wall

The name is believed to have originated from L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who was the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq following the Iraq War of 2003 in the early years of the Iraq War.

Central Bank of Iraq

Currently the acting Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq is Abdel Basset Turki, which also happens to be the head of the state-spending watchdog the Board of Supreme Audit.

Ceres, California

Andres Raya, a U.S. Marine on leave after coming back from Iraq, was armed with an SKS rifle and opened fire on officers, hitting Officer Ryno and killing Sergeant Stevenson.

Clean sweep

Operation Clean Sweep, a 2004 coalition counterinsurgency operation in Iraq

Dominic Waghorn

He worked there for almost five years, during which time he covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aftermath of the War in Lebanon, and the Arab Spring.

He worked there for almost five years, during which time he covered the wars in Iraq, the aftermath of the War in Lebanon, and the Arab Spring.

Eric P. Schwartz

At the Council on Foreign Relations, he directed the Independent Task Force on Post-Conflict Iraq, working closely with co-chairs Thomas R. Pickering and James R. Schlesinger.

Faumuina Tiatia Liuga

From 1997 to 1998 he worked as Chief Administrator for the UN Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq.

FILAT

Although the Chinese government has not mentioned how LANTIRN and TIALD systems had fallen into the Chinese hands, western sources have reported that China had obtained the systems from downed allied aircraft via Iraq during the Gulf War.

Gary Gibbon

Gibbon won the 2006 RTS Home News Award with Jon Snow for his scoop on the Attorney General's Legal Advice on Iraq, and revealed details of Tony Blair's pre-war meeting with George W. Bush.

General Dynamics/Grumman EF-111A Raven

On 17 January 1991, a USAF EF-111 crew of Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon ("Brandini") achieved an unofficial kill against an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1, which they managed to maneuver into the ground, making it the only member of the F-111/FB-111/EF-111 family to achieve an aerial victory over another aircraft.

Gordian III

Persian sources claim that a battle was fought (Battle of Misiche) near modern Fallujah (Iraq) and resulted in a major Roman defeat and the death of Gordian III.

Hamdanid dynasty

His son Abdallah (904-929) was in turn appointed governor of Mosul in northern Iraq (906) and even governed Baghdad (914).

Hassan Ghul

Ghul was carrying a USB flash drive and two CDs, one allegedly including a 17-page progress report believed to have been written by al-Zarqawi, claiming responsibility for suicide attacks in Iraq.

Hilli

Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (c. 1205-1277), an influential Shi'i Mujtahid born in the city of al-Hilla, Iraq

Holocene glacial retreat

Excavations in Iraq, for example, have shown evidence of a flood at Shuruppak around 2900-2750 BCE which extended nearly as far as the city of Kish (whose king, Etana, supposedly founded the first Sumerian dynasty after the Deluge).

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

On September 8, 2006, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released "Phase II" of its report on prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Kathleen A. McGrath

In the spring of 2000, during her command of the Jarrett,and just six years after Congress revoked rules prohibiting women from serving on combat aircraft and warships, the ship deployed to the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, hunting boats suspected of smuggling Iraqi oil in violation of United Nations sanctions.

Mamluk dynasty of Iraq

Both Hasan and Ahmad rendered a valuable service to the Ottoman Porte by curbing the unruly tribes and securing a steady inflow of taxes to the treasury in Constantinople as well as by defending Iraq against yet another military threat from the Safavids of Iran.

Mesopotamia, Oxford

The name Mesopotamia in Greek means "between the rivers" and originally referred to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq.

Michael Berg

He is most well known as the father of Nick Berg, one of the first American civilians to be abducted and beheaded by individuals claiming to be insurgents in Iraq.

Michael Usher

Usher was the Nine Network's correspondent in New York when the Twin Towers were attacked in September 2001, and less than two years later was in Iraq, travelling north from Kuwait to reach Baghdad the day after the Coalition seized the city.

Michael Weisskopf

While embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Iraq on December 10, 2003, his right hand was blown off as he tried to throw an enemy grenade back out of the Humvee in which he was riding.

Najah Ali

After the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ali met with Maurice Watkins, a former professional world title challenger who had been assigned by the American government to train Iraq's Olympic boxing team.

Northern Tier

During the Cold War, in England and the U.S., it refers to the Four Middle Eastern members of the Central Treaty Organization: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

Pavle Kalinić

He wrote introductions for several books translated into Croatian, such as The Third Way by Tony Blair, Clash of Fundamentalisms by Tariq Ali, Disarming Iraq by Hans Blix, The Fateful Triangle by Noam Chomsky.

Quest: The History of Spaceflight

Representative articles have featured an unpublished chapter from the James Hansen authorized biography of Neil Armstrong regarding his involvement with the Space Shuttle Challenger accident investigation; the memoirs of Valentina Tereshkova, contributed directly by the first woman in space; Galileo and European interest in positioning and navigation satellites, military use of satellites in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and the U.S. chimpanzee in space efforts.

Republic of Kuwait

On August 28 Kuwaiti territory was transformed into the Kuwait Governorate, Iraq's 19th province, and thus formally annexed.

Ryu Seung-Woo

On 27 June 2013, Ryu was injured and substituted during South Korea's final game of the group stage against Nigeria, forcing him to miss out their Round of 16 match against Colombia, and subsequently, their Quarter-final loss against Iraq.

Salih Sadir

The talented player from the southern city of Najaf, is one of Iraq's most gifted individuals, who excelled playing for the Olympic team in the qualifying rounds – his performances compensated for the absence of Nashat Akram in Iraq's midfield.

Şemdinli

Interior minister, İdris Naim Şahin, explained that the forces were attempting to block the PKK's escape routes into northern Iraq, and that as many as 115 PKK fighters had been killed.

Spider hole

On December 13, 2003, during the Iraq War, American forces in Operation Red Dawn captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein hiding in what was characterized as a "spider hole" in a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit.

Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti

According to the London Sunday Telegraph, Mohamed Atta is mentioned in a letter allegedly discovered in Iraq handwritten by Tahir Jalil Habbush al Takriti, former chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

The Other Iraq

Douglas Layton, - Originator or THE OTHER IRAQ concept and public relations campaign and the Country Director of Kurdistan Development Corporation during the campaign

Timeline of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007

November 30, 2007: U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), an outspoken congressional critic of the Iraq war, said he saw signs of significant military progress during a brief trip to the Middle East.

Torture Central

Torture Central: E-mails From Abu Ghraib is the title of the memoir of Michael Keller, a soldier stationed in Abu Ghraib, Iraq during 2005/2006.

War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know

War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know is short book, written in 2002, by William Rivers Pitt and featuring an extensive interview with former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

Youra Eshaya

Youra played only four games in his second season before the president of the Royal Iraqi Air Force FC, Brigadier Kadhim Abbadi, invited him back to Iraq.

Zurbatiyah

Combat Outpost Shocker- U.S. Coalition base located in Zurbatiyah, Iraq.