Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)
multi-faceted civil war in Iraq between 2006 and 2008
The Iraqi civil war was an armed conflict from 2006 to 2008 between various sectarian Shia and Sunni armed groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Mahdi Army, in addition to the Iraqi government alongside American-led coalition forces. In February 2006, the insurgency against the coalition and government escalated into a sectarian civil war after the bombing of Al-Askari Shrine, considered a holy site in Twelver Shi'ism. US President George W. Bush and Iraqi officials accused al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) of orchestrating the bombing. AQI publicly denied any links. The incident set off a wave of attacks on Sunni civilians by Shia militants, followed by attacks on Shia civilians by Sunni militants.
The UN Secretary General stated in September 2006 that if patterns of discord and violence continued, the Iraqi state was in danger of breaking up. On 10 January 2007, Bush said that "80% of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles (48 km) of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shakes the confidence of all Iraqis." By late 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate described the conflict as having elements of a civil war. In 2008, during the Sunni Awakening and the U.S. troop surge, violence declined dramatically. However, an insurgency by ISI continued to plague Iraq following the U.S. withdrawal in late 2011.
“Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)” enters the record as multi-faceted civil war in Iraq between 2006 and 2008. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Iraqi, civil and multi-faceted can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Iraqi, civil and multi-faceted provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17183365. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2008, 2007 and 2011.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.