A Look Back at Iraq and the Iraqi Blogosphere: 2006

Year in Review: 2006

In 2006, three events easily stand out above all the others. In February, the Golden Mosque in Samarra was bombed; in June, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by US forces; and in December, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death and then was hung in Baghdad. The destruction of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra had by far the most far-reaching consequences. Because of that event, no Iraqi would ever want to live through a year like 2006 again. And yet, the bombing was in reality the culmination of tension between Sunnis and Shiites that had been building ever since the fall of Baghdad. For Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, the years after the fall of Baghdad had been uneasy and tentative. Shiites began to assert power, while Sunnis tried to hold on to power.

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