Sunni Triangle
The Sunni Triangle refers to a roughly triangular area of Iraq to the northwest of Baghdad. It is inhabited mainly by Sunni Muslims who have historically been the most enthusiastic supporters of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Saddam himself was born just outside the town of Tikrit, in the Sunni Triangle. The usual definition of the triangle's three corners are: Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the area has become the apex of armed Sunni opposition to Coalition rule. It was widely predicted that Saddam would seek shelter from Sunni supporters and on December 13, 2003, he was captured in a raid on the village of ad-Dawr some 15km south of Tikrit.The term "Sunni triangle" is of obscure origins. It appears to have been used by foreign experts on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, with the first mention being in a San Francisco Chronicle article of September 14, 2002 in which the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says: "We may be able to generate support for an invasion among some of the Shiites and some of the Kurds, but to get to Baghdad you must penetrate the Sunni Triangle." However, it did not achieve widespread use until a New York Times article of June 10, 2003 popularised the term in a report on "a new U.S. effort to quell nascent armed resistance in Sunni Muslim-dominated areas north and west of Baghdad [in an] area known as the 'Sunni triangle'."