History of Iraq (2011–present)

The departure of US troops from Iraq in 2011 ended the period of occupation that had begun with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The time since U.S. withdrawal has been marked by a renewed Iraqi insurgency and by a spillover of the Syrian civil war into Iraq. By 2013, the insurgency escalated into a renewed civil war, the central government of Iraq being opposed by various factions, primarily radical Sunni forces.

ISIS forces have seized the majority of Anbar province, including the cities of Fallujah,Al Qaim,Abu Ghraib and (in May 2015) Ramadi, leaving them in control of 90% of Anbar.Tikrit, Mosul and most of the Nineveh province, along with parts of Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces, were seized by insurgent forces in the June 2014 offensive. ISIS captured Sinjar and a number of other towns in the August 2014 offensive, but Sinjar became a contested city in December 2014.

Sectarian violence continued in the first half of 2013 with at least 56 people killed in April when a Sunni protest in Hawija was interrupted by a government-supported helicopter raid. On 20 May 2013, at least 95 people died in a wave of car bomb attacks that was preceded by a car bombing on 15 May that led to 33 deaths; also, on 18 May, 76 people were killed in the Sunni areas of Baghdad. On 22 July 2013, at least five hundred convicts, most of whom were senior members of al-Qaida who had received death sentences, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail when comrades launched a military-style assault to free them. The attack began when a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into prison gates. James F. Jeffrey, the United States ambassador in Baghdad when the last American troops exited, said the assault and resulting escape "will provide seasoned leadership and a morale boost to Al Qaeda and its allies in both Iraq and Syria ... it is likely to have an electrifying impact on the Sunni population in Iraq, which has been sitting on the fence."

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