Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)

Iraqi civil war
	Part of the Iraq War
	; A city street in Ramadi heavily damaged by the fighting in 2006
Date	22 February 2006 – 15 May 2008; (2 years, 2 months, 3 weeks and 2 days)
Location	Iraq
Result	Short-term Iraqi government and allied victory Attempt of ethnic cleansing of Shias by Islamic State of Iraq (ISI); 4 million people displaced; American troop surge in 2007; Iraqi counter-offensive into southern Iraq in early 2008; Ceasefire signed with Mahdi Army in May 2008; Islamic State of Iraq territorially defeated by mid-2008; Presence of British and American troops in advise and assist roles until 2011; Continued ISI insurgency in Iraq; Resurgence of Islamic State of Iraq, which later severed relations with Al-Qaeda and established the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in 2013; following the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq;
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
	69,760 recorded civilian deaths (2006–2008); 151,000–1,033,000 Iraqi deaths (2003–2008)

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 as a holy site in Twelver Shi'ism. US President George W. Bush and Iraqi officials accused Al-Qaeda in Iraq of orchestrating the bombing, although AQI publicly rejected any links to the attacks. 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 to prevail, the Iraqi state was in danger of breaking up. In a 10 January 2007 address, President George W. Bush stated 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.". The conflict escalated over the next several months until 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 from the country in late 2011. In June 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the successor of Islamic State of Iraq, launched a major military offensive in Iraq and declared a self-proclaimed worldwide Islamic caliphate, leading to another full-scale war in Iraq from 2013 to 2017 in which Iraq declared full victory against the terrorist group.

In October 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi government estimated that more than 370,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million. The Red Cross stated in 2008 that Iraq's humanitarian situation was among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.

According to the Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq was one of the world's top 5 unstable states from 2005 to 2008.

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