Sectarian violence in Iraq refers to the violence that developed as a result of rising sectarian tensions between the different religious and ethnic groups of Iraq, most notably the conflict between the Shi'i Muslim majority and the Sunni Muslim minority within the country. With the creation of a modern nation-state, sectarian tensions arose slowly and eventually developed into recent violent conflicts such as the War in Iraq (2013–2017) and the Iraqi Civil War (2006–2008).