Sunni triangle
The so-called Sunni triangle ( Arabic المثلث السني, DMG al-muṯallaṯ as-sunnī ) is the name for an almost triangular area in Iraq in the northwest of the capital Baghdad . It is mainly inhabited by Sunni Arabs , traditionally the country's ruling elite, of the same faith as the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and a large part of the Bath party . Saddam himself was born here, near the city of Tikrit , in the Sunni Triangle. Three cities are commonly referred to as the corners of the triangle: Baghdad (in the east), Ramadi (in the west) and Tikrit (in the north). The area also includes the cities of Samarra and Fallujah .
Since the beginning of the Third Gulf War in 2003, the Sunni Triangle has developed into a refuge for armed Iraqi militias fighting the occupiers. It was foreseeable that Saddam Hussein would seek refuge and protection here among his supporters; on December 13, 2003, he was arrested in the village of ad-Daur , 15 kilometers south of Tikrit.
The genesis of the term “Sunni Triangle” is unknown. It turns out that it had been used by foreign Iraq experts long before the invasion of 2003 (e.g. by Sluglett as early as 1991: Iraq since 1958); The name was also mentioned in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle of September 14, 2002, so it was far from the first. Former UN - weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote at the time:
- "We may have the opportunity to gain support for an invasion of some Shiites and Kurds , but to get to Baghdad we would have to invade the Sunni Triangle."
Thereafter, the term was not widely used for a while until the New York Times published an article on June 10, 2003 about recent successes by US forces in suppressing armed resistance in Sunni-populated areas north and west of Baghdad, known as the "Sunni Triangle “Known published. Since then, the name has become an integral part of reports of attempts by the US-led Coalition of the Willing to take control of the region.
The Sunni Triangle does not coincide with the so-called "Death Triangle ", an area south of Baghdad which is inhabited by both Sunnis and Shiites and on which the military activities at the end of 2004 were concentrated.