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The Anbar campaign was a major Sunni Islamist uprising which occurred in Anbar Governorate, Iraq in 2013-2014, initiating the Iraqi Civil War. The offensive resulted in ISIL's capture of 70% of Anbar, including the cities of Fallujah, al-Qa'im, ar-Rutbah, Abu Ghraib, and half of Ramadi.

Background[]

Starting in 2012, the Sunni Arab tribes of Anbar Governorate began to hold anti-government rallies and demonstrations to protest the discriminatory policies of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shia and Kurdish-dominated government. The arrest of Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi on 21 December 2012 under discriminatory anti-terrorism laws escalated sectarian tensions in Iraq, as did Iran's continued meddling in Iraqi affairs and the abuse of de-Ba'athification laws by the government. The Dulaim, Zoba, al-Jumeitat, and Albu Issa became major supporters of the Sunni insurgency in Anbar, dividing their support between the Ba'athist General Military Council for Iraqi Revolutionaries (including the JRTN and SCJL groups), the local Anbar Tribes Revolutionary Council, the traditional Islamist insurgent groups (such as the Islamic Army in Iraq and Hamas of Iraq), and the hardcore Salafist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

War[]

The 30 December 2013 arrest of Sunni MP Ahmed al-Alwani - a key ally of the anti-government protesters - led to the tribal militias entering into open revolt against the Iraqi government. Tribal militias battled the Iraqi Army in Ramadi and Fallujah, and, when the Army withdrew from Anbar a day later to calm the inflamed tensions, ISIL took advantage of the power vacuum and occupied half of Ramadi and other parts of Anbar. On 2 January 2014, al-Qaeda militants took over several police stations in Fallujah, resulting in bloody clashes between Iraqi government forces and the local militias. On 4 January 2014, Fallujah fell to ISIL, and ISIL founded the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" to enforce their strict sharia code in the city, just as the Mujahideen Shura Council had done from 2005 to 2006. By 8 January 2014, ISIL had also captured al-Karmah, Hit, Khaldiyah, Haditha, al-Qaim, and parts of Ramadi and the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib. The Iraqi Army only offered serious resistance in Ramadi, launching several counterattacks against ISIL with varying degrees of success. On 8 February 2014, Anbar Governor Ahmad Khalaf Dheyabi called on ISIL to surrender within a week or face the consequences. From March to May, the Iraqi government launched a major counterattack with little success. ISIL then began a major counterattack in June, seizing most of Anbar while also launching the massively successful Northern Iraq offensive.

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