page_title: Samarra
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: Samarra / History / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Les dômes de Samarra en 1970 (2)
context_page_description: Samarra is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, 125 kilometers north of Baghdad. In 2003 the city had an estimated population of 348,700. During the sectarian violence in Iraq, Samarra was in the "Sunni Triangle" of violence.
  In the medieval times, Samarra was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and is the only remaining Islamic capital that retains its original plan, architecture and artistic relics. In 2007, UNESCO named Samarra one of its World Heritage Sites.
context_section_description: In the eighteenth century, one of the most violent battles of the 1730–1735 Ottoman–Persian War, the Battle of Samarra, took place, where over 50,000 Turks and Persians became casualties. The engagement decided the fate of Ottoman Iraq and kept it under Istanbul's suzerainty until the First World War.
  During the 20th century, Samarra gained new importance when a permanent lake, Lake Tharthar, was created through the construction of the Samarra Barrage, which was built in order to prevent the frequent flooding of Baghdad. Many local people were displaced by the dam, resulting in an increase in Samarra's population.
  Samarra is a key city in Saladin Governorate, a major part of the so-called Sunni Triangle where insurgents were active during the Iraq War.
  Though Samarra is famous for its Shi'i holy sites, including the tombs of several Shi'i Imams, the town was traditionally and until very recently, dominated by Sunni Arabs.  Tensions arose between Sunnis and the Shi'a during the Iraq War. On February 22, 2006, the golden dome of the al-Askari Mosque was bombed, setting off a period of rioting and reprisal attacks across the country which claimed hundreds of lives. No organization claimed responsibility for the bombing. On June 13, 2007, insurgents attacked the mosque again and destroyed the two minarets that flanked the dome's ruins. On July 12, 2007, the clock tower was blown up. No fatalities were reported. Shiʿi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for peaceful demonstrations and three days of mourning. He stated that he believed no Sunni Arab could have been behind the attack, though according to the New York Times the attackers were likely Sunnis linked to Al-Qaeda. The mosque compound and minarets had been closed since the 2006 bombing. An indefinite curfew was placed on the city by the Iraqi police.
  Ever since the end of Iraqi civil war in 2007, the Shia population of the holy city has increased exponentially. However, violence has continued, with bombings taking place in 2011 and 2013. In June 2014, the city was attacked by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as part of the Northern Iraq offensive.  ISIL forces captured the municipality building and university, but were later repulsed.
caption: Men walk down a street in Samarra in 1970
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "EPSON scanner image", "Image Make": "SEIKO EPSON CORP.", "Image Model": "EPSON scanner", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "EPSON Scan", "Image DateTime": "2013:06:14 09:08:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2330", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 4, 0, 1, 0, 18, 0, 18, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 4, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4860", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8836", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:06:12 13:24:48", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:06:12 13:24:48", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1050", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "700", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "FC3237AD038B4545A108BF92CF81793B", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4128"}