The Christy Collection

Military Stories and Articles

Iraq War – Operation Restoring Rights – The Battle of Tal Afar

Iraq War – Operation Restoring Rights – The Battle of Tal Afar

In 2005, Al-Qaida in Iraq was the budding offshoot of Osama bin Laden's notorious terror organization. It would later become notorious worldwide, as AQI was the forerunner of what would eventually evolve into the Islamic State, spreading death and destruction across large swathes of Syria and Iraq. During the Iraq War, however, the group was just getting started. The Battle of Tal Afar Began With a Bold Assault Al-Qaida in Iraq controlled the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, a town filled with...

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Iraq War – The Second Battle of Fallujah

Iraq War – The Second Battle of Fallujah

On March 31, 2004, a private contractor's convoy was traveling through Fallujah when it was ambushed by heavily armed insurgents. Safeguarding the convoy were four Blackwater USA employees - Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague. The four were killed by machine gunfire and a grenade thrown through a window of their SUVs. Their charred bodies were dragged from the burning wreckage of their vehicles by a mob, mutilated, dragged through the streets, and two were hung...

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Iraq War – The Siege of Sadr City

Iraq War – The Siege of Sadr City

On Mar. 28, 2004, Paul Bremer, administrator of the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq, ordered the closure of al-Hawza, an Arabic-language newspaper that was a sounding board for the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.  Bremer shut down the weekly paper because he believed it encouraged violence against U.S. troops in Iraq. It was only supposed to last 60 days, but the action would spark a series of events that led to a four-year siege and a series of battles between Coalition...

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