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international support.
2001 May - Saddam's son Qusay elected to the leadership of the ruling Baath Party, fuelling speculation that he's being groomed to succeed his father.
2002 April - Baghdad suspends oil exports to protest against Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories. Despite calls by Saddam Hussein, no other Arab countries follow suit. Exports resume after 30 days.
Weapons inspectors return
2002 September - US President George W Bush tells sceptical world leaders at a UN General Assembly session to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq - or stand aside as the US acts. In the same month British Prime Minister Tony Blair publishes a dossier on Iraq's military capability.
In Iraq a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilised world - and we will not allow it
US President George W Bush, February 2003
2002 November - UN weapons inspectors return to Iraq backed by a UN resolution which threatens serious consequences if Iraq is in "material breach" of its terms.
2003 March - Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix reports that Iraq has accelerated its cooperation but says inspectors need more time to verify Iraq's compliance.
Saddam ousted
2003 17 March - UK's ambassador to the UN says the diplomatic process on Iraq has ended; arms inspectors evacuate; US President George W Bush gives Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war.
2003 20 March - American missiles hit targets in Baghdad, marking the start of a US-led campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. In the following days US and British ground troops enter Iraq from the south.
Baghdad, 9 April 2003: A symbol of Saddam's power tumbles
Timeline: Iraq after SaddamIn Depth: The struggle for Iraq
BBC's Rageh Omaar on the day's drama
2003 9 April - US forces advance into central Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's grip on the city is broken. In the following days Kurdish fighters and US forces take control of the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. There is looting in Baghdad and elsewhere.
2003 April - US lists 55 most-wanted members of former regime in the form of a deck of cards. Former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz is taken into custody.
2003 May - UN Security Council backs US-led administration in Iraq and lifts economic sanctions. US administrator abolishes Baath Party and institutions of former regime.
2003 July - US-appointed Governing Council meets for first time. Commander of US forces says his troops face low-intensity guerrilla-style war. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay killed in gun battle in Mosul.
Insurgency intensifies2003 August - Deadly bomb attacks on Jordanian embassy and UN HQ in Baghdad. Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, or Chemical Ali, captured. Car bomb in Najaf kills 125 including Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim.
Soldiers and civilians are targets in ongoing violence
Iraq Body Count: War dead figuresWho are the insurgents?
2003 14 December - Saddam Hussein captured in Tikrit.
2004 February - More than 100 killed in Irbil in suicide attacks on offices of main Kurdish factions.
2004 March - Suicide bombers attack Shia festival-goers in Karbala and Baghdad, killing 140 people.
2004 April-May - Shia militias loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr take on coalition forces.
Hundreds are reported killed in fighting during the month-long US military siege of the Sunni Muslim city of Falluja.
Photographic evidence emerges of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops.
Sovereignty and elections
2004 June - US hands sovereignty to interim government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Saddam Hussein transferred to Iraqi legal custody.
2004 August - Fighting in Najaf between US forces and Shia militia of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.
2004 November - Major US-led offensive against insurgents in Falluja.
Religious, ethnic fault lines run through Iraqi politics
Guide to Iraqi political parties2006: Iraq election results confirmed
2005 30 January - An estimated eight million people vote in elections for a Transitional National Assembly. The Shia United Iraqi Alliance wins a majority of assembly seats. Kurdish parties come second.
2005 28 February - At least 114 people are killed by a massive car bomb in Hilla, south of Baghdad. It is the worst single such incident since the US-led invasion.
2005 April - Amid escalating violence, parliament selects Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president. Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shia, is named as prime minister.
2005 May onwards - Surge in car bombings, bomb explosions and shootings: Iraqi ministries put the civilian death toll for May at 672, up from 364 in April.
2005 June - Massoud Barzani is sworn in as regional president of Iraqi Kurdistan.
2005 July - Study compiled by the non-governmental Iraq Body Count organisation estimates that nearly 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Saddam was executed for crimes against humanity
Q&A: Saddam on trialTimeline of Saddam's trial
2005 August - Draft constitution is endorsed by Shia and Kurdish negotiators, but not by Sunni representatives.
More than 1,000 people are killed during a stampede at a Shia ceremony in Baghdad.
2005 September - 182 people are killed in attacks in Baghdad, including a car bomb attack on a group of workers in a mainly-Shia district.
Saddam on trial
2005 October - Saddam Hussein goes on trial on charges of crimes against humanity.
Voters approve a new constitution, which aims to create an Islamic federal democracy.
2005 15 December - Iraqis vote for the first, full-term government and parliament since the US-led invasion.
2006 20 January - Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance emerges as the winner of December's parliamentary elections, but fails to gain an absolute majority.
Sectarian violence
2006 February onwards - A bomb attack on an important Shia shrine in Samarra unleashes a wave of sectarian violence in which hundreds of people are killed.
2006 22 April - Newly re-elected President Talabani asks Shia compromise candidate Jawad al-Maliki to form a new government. The move ends four months of political deadlock.
Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr - a key power broker
Who's who in Iraq: Moqtada Sadr
2006 May and June - An average of more than 100 civilians per day are killed in violence in Iraq, the UN says.
2006 7 June - Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is killed in an air strike.
2006 September - A much-anticipated ceremony to transfer operational command from US-led forces to Iraq's new army is postponed.
2006 November - Saddam Hussein is found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.
Iraq and Syria restore diplomatic relations after nearly a quarter century.
More than 200 die in car bombings in the mostly Shia area of Sadr City in Baghdad. An indefinite curfew is imposed after what is considered the worst attack on the capital since the US-led invasion of 2003.
2006 December - Iraq Study Group report making recommendations to President Bush on future policy in Iraq describes the situation as grave and deteriorating. It warns of the prospect of a slide towards chaos, triggering the collapse of the government and a humanitarian catastrophe.
Saddam executed
2006 30 December - Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging.
Bombers have repeatedly targeted markets
2007: Baghdad diary - First, worst, biggest
2007 January - US President Bush announces a new Iraq strategy; thousands more US troops will be dispatched to shore up security in Baghdad.
Barzan Ibrahim - Saddam Hussein's half-brother - and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging.
UN says more than 34,000 civilians were killed in violence during 2006; the figure surpasses official Iraqi estimates threefold.
2007 February - A bomb in Baghdad's Sadriya market kills more than 130 people. It is the worst single bombing since 2003.
2007 March - Insurgents detonate three trucks with toxic chlorine gas in Falluja and Ramadi, injuring hundreds.
Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan is executed on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion.
2007 12 April - A bomb blast rocks parliament, killing an MP.
18 April - Bombings in Baghdad kill nearly 200 people in the worst day of violence since a US-led security drive began in the capital in February.
2007 May - The leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, is reported killed.
2007 July - President Bush says there's been only limited military and political progress in Iraq following his decision to reinforce US troops levels there.
2007 August - The main Sunni Arab political bloc in Iraq, the Iraqi Accordance Front, withdraws from the cabinet following a dispute over power-sharing.
Truck and car bombs hit two villages of Yazidi Kurds, killing at least 250 people - the deadliest attack since 2003.
Kurdish and Shia leaders form an alliance to support Prime Minister Maliki's government but fail to bring in Sunni leaders.
Blackwater shootings
2007 September - Controversy over private security contractors after Blackwater security guards allegedly fire at civilians, killing 17.
2007 October - Turkish parliament gives go-ahead for military operations in Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. Turkey comes under international pressure to avoid an invasion.
The number of violent civilian and military deaths continues to drop, as does the frequency of rocket attacks.
Karbala, the mainly Shia province, becomes the 18th province to be transferred to local control.
Turkish raids
2007 December - Turkey launches an air raid on fighters from the Kurdish PKK movement inside Iraq.
Britain hands over security of Basra province to Iraqi forces, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.
2008 January - Parliament passes legislation allowing former officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath party to return to public life.
2008 February - Suicide bombings at pet markets in Baghdad kill more than 50 people in the deadliest attacks in the capital in months.
Turkish forces mount a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
Iraqi troops crack down on militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr in Basra
2008 March - Unprecedented two-day visit by Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Iraq.
Prime Minister Maliki orders crackdown on militia in Basra, sparking pitched battles with Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army. Hundreds are killed.
2008 April - Sadr threatens to scrap Mehdi Army truce which he declared in August 2007.
US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, tells Congress he plans to halt US troop withdrawals because of fragile security gains.
2008 June - Australia ends its combat operations in Iraq.
Mr Maliki pays third visit to Iran since taking office as premier. He seeks to allay Iranian fears over proposed indefinite extension of US military presence in Iraq by saying he will not allow his country to be used as a launch pad for an American attack on Iran.
2008 July - Prime Minister Maliki for the first time raises the prospect of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.
The main Sunni Arab bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, rejoins the Shia-led government almost a year after it pulled out.
2008 September - US forces hand over control of the western province of Anbar to the Iraqi government. Once a flashpoint of the anti-US insurgency and later an al-Qaeda stronghold, Anbar is the first Sunni province to be returned to Baghdad's Shia-led government.
Iraqi parliament passes provincial elections law after long debates. Issue of contested city of Kirkuk set aside so that elections can go ahead elsewhere.
2008 October - Members of the Baghdad Awakening Council, estimated to number about 54,000, move to the Iraqi government payroll, with other members of the Sunni militia councils set to follow.
The US military says al-Qaeda in Iraq's second-in-command has been killed during a raid in the northern city of Mosul, and that the group's top commander in east Baghdad has also been killed.
The government sends extra police to Mosul to protect the city's Christians after a spate of killings blamed on al-Qaeda.
Security pact approved
2008 November - The Iraqi parliament approves a security pact with the United States under which all US troops are due to leave the country by the end of 2011.
2009 January - Iraq takes control of security in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and assumes more powers over foreign troops based in the country. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki welcomes the move as Iraq's "day of sovereignty".
A suicide bomber kills and wounds dozens at a feast for Sunni Arab electoral candidates and tribal leaders in the town of Yusufiyah, near Baghdad.
The new US embassy in Baghdad - one of the largest and most expensive ever built - is officially opened amid heavy security. Read more: |
