Sunni Islam in Iraq in the context of "Anbar campaign (2013–2014)"

Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the president of Iraq from 1979 until he was overthrown in 2003 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He previously served as the vice president from 1968 to 1979 and also as the prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. A leading member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, he was a proponent of Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. The policies and ideologies he championed are collectively known as Saddamism.

Born near the city of Tikrit to a Sunni Arab family, Saddam joined the revolutionary Ba'ath Party in 1957. He played a key role in the 17 July Revolution that brought the Ba'athists to power in Iraq and made him vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. During his tenure as vice president, Saddam nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company, diversified the economy, introduced free healthcare and education, and supported women's rights. He also presided over the defeat of the Kurdish insurgency in the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War and signed the Algiers Agreement with Iran in 1975, thereby settling territorial disputes along the Iran–Iraq border. Following al-Bakr's resignation in 1979, Saddam formally took power. During his presidency, positions of power in the country were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, a minority that made up only about a fifth of the Iraqi population.

Fallujah (Arabic: ٱلْفَلُّوجَة al-Fallūjah [el.fɐl.ˈluː.dʒɐ]) is a city in Al Anbar Governorate, Iraq. Situated on the Euphrates River, it is located roughly 69 kilometres (43 mi) to the west of the capital city of Baghdad and 50 kilometres (31 mi) from the neighboring city of Ramadi. The city is located in the region defined as Sunni Triangle by the United States, as the majority of its residents are Sunni Arabs. In 1947, Fallujah was a small town with a relatively small population but had grown to a population of about 250,900 people by 2018.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which triggered the Iraq War, the city became a major centre of resistance during insurgency. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Iraqi Interim Government twice engaged in fierce urban combat with insurgents throughout the city; the first battle of Fallujah failed to dislodge the insurgents, triggering the second battle, in which the coalition forces successfully took control of the city. However, heavy fighting from these two battles left the city severely damaged, though it remained occupied by the coalition until 2011. In January 2014, three years after the American withdrawal from Iraq, Fallujah was captured by the Islamic State (IS) and suffered a major population decline. On 23 May 2016, the government announced the beginning of a large-scale military offensive against the IS militants occupying the city, resulting in the Third Battle of Fallujah. On 26 June 2016, the Iraqi Armed Forces stated that Fallujah had been fully liberated and was free from militant control.

Ba'athist Iraq, officially the Iraqi Republic (1968–1992) and later the Republic of Iraq (1992–2003), was the Iraqi state between 1968 and 2003 under the one-party rule of the Iraqi regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The regime emerged as a result of the 17 July Revolution which brought the Ba'athists to power, and lasted until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Ba'ath Party, led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, came to power in Iraq through the bloodless 17 July 1968 Revolution, which overthrew president Abdul Rahman Arif and prime minister Tahir Yahya. By the mid-1970s, Saddam Hussein became the country's de facto leader, despite al-Bakr's de jure presidency. Saddam's new policies boosted the Iraqi economy, improved living standards, and elevated Iraq's standing within the Arab world. However, several internal factors were imminently threatening Iraq's stability; the Sunni-dominated Ba'athist government faced Shia religious separatism and Kurdish ethnic separatism. The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War was of great concern to the government as Kurdish rebels received extensive support from Iran, Israel, and the United States. Following the 1974–1975 Shatt al-Arab clashes, Saddam met with Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and signed the 1975 Algiers Agreement, ceding territory to Iran in exchange for an end to Kurdish support. With the Kurdish rebellion subsequently disadvantaged, the Iraqi military reasserted the federal government's control over Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Saladin, Salah ad Din, or Salah Al-Din Governorate (Arabic: محافظة صلاح الدين, Muḥāfaẓat Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn) is one of Iraq's 19 governorates, north of Baghdad. It has an area of 24,363 square kilometres (9,407 sq mi), with an estimated population of 1,042,200 people in 2003. It is made up of 8 districts, with the capital being Tikrit. Before 1976 the governorate was part of Baghdad Governorate.

The governorate is named after Saladin or Salah ad-Din. This governorate is largely Sunni Arab and is also where Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, was born, in the village of Al-Awja. Salah Al-Din governorate, a traditional stronghold of Saddam and his Al-Bu Nasir tribe that is located in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, has been a centre of insurgencies, tribal rivalries, and political and sectarian violence since the 2003 U.S.-led Coalition invasion of Iraq.

The Iraqi conflict is a series of violent events that began with the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq and deposition of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, followed by a series of conflicts including the protracted Iraq War (2003–2011), the Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013), the War in Iraq (2013–2017), and most recently, the small-scale Islamic State insurgency in 4 provinces located in Northern Iraq since 2017.

In the ensuing 2003–2011 Iraq War, the Multi-National Force (MNF–I) led by the United States helped to establish a Shia-dominated federal government, which was soon opposed by an Iraqi insurgency. Insurgent groups mostly fought the new government and MNF-I, but also each other, mostly along sectarian lines between Shias and Sunnis. In 2011, the MNF–I withdrew from Iraq, leading to renewed sectarian violence and enabling the emergence of the Islamic State (IS). The renewed war drew an American-led intervention in 2014. The most recent war in the country came to a close in 2017 as the Iraqi government and its allies largely defeated the IS, which was followed by a low-level IS insurgency in certain rural northern parts of the country.

Iraqis (Arabic: العراقيون al-ʿIrāqiyyūn; Kurdish: عێراقییەکان, romanized: 'Êraqiyekan) are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of Iraq. The majority of Iraqis are Arabs, with Kurds accounting for the largest ethnic minority, followed by Turkmen. Other ethnic groups from the country include Yazidis, Assyrians, Mandaeans, and other Mesopotamian Minorities. Approximately 95% of Iraqis adhere to Islam, with nearly 64% of this figure consisting of Shia Muslims and the remainder consisting of Sunni Muslims. The largest minority religion is Christianity at 1%, while other religions collectively represent as much as 4% of the Iraqi populace.

The territory of modern-day Iraq largely overlaps with what was historically known as Mesopotamia, which was home to many noteworthy civilizations, such as Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia. The fall of these native Mesopotamian civilizations, particularly Babylon in the 6th century BC, marked the beginning of centuries-long foreign conquests and rule. Recent studies indicate that the various Iraqi ethnic groups have significant genetic similarities, likely due to the long history of intermingling and assimilation between foreign and indigenous populations in the region.

Saddamism (Arabic: صدامية, romanized: Ṣaddāmiyah), also known as Saddamist Ba'athism (Arabic: البعثية الصدامية, romanized: al-Baʿthīyah as-Ṣaddāmiyah), is a Ba'athist political ideology based on the political ideas and thinking of Saddam Hussein, who served as the president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. It espouses Arab nationalism, Arab socialism and Pan-Arabism, as well as an Iraq-centred Arab world that calls upon Arab countries to adopt Saddamist political discourse and reject "the Nasserist discourse" that it claims collapsed following the Six-Day War in 1967. It is militarist and views political disputes and conflict in a military manner as "battles" requiring "fighting", "mobilization", "battlefields", "bastions", and "trenches". Saddamism was officially supported by Saddam Hussein's government and the ruling Iraqi Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and promoted by the Iraqi daily newspaper Babil owned by Saddam's son Uday Hussein.

Saddamism has often been described as an authoritarian and totalitarian ideology that aimed to control all aspects of Iraqi life, and has been accused by critics of incorporating "Sunni Arab nationalism, confused Stalinism, and fascist zeal for the fatherland and its leader", as well as enabling Saddam to generate a cult of personality revolving around him. However, the applicability of these labels has been contested. Saddamism's right-wing nature contributed to the inter-Ba'athist rivalry with the left-wing neo-Ba'athists and the Assad family who held power in Ba'athist Syria.