The division suffered heavy casualties in the fight against the Islamic State during the 2013-2017 War but has regained its strength in the last few years.

[1] It fought in the Iran–Iraq War, including Operation Fath ol-Mobin, in which the division suffered heavy losses, and at the Second Battle of Al Faw.

As a first order by Iraq's new Ministry of Defense, the all-Iraqi Intervention Forces began patrolling the streets of Baghdad on 28 June 2004.

[5] The first significant troop increase for the IIF in 2005 was the graduation of 670 soldiers from the Taji military training base on January 18, 2005.

[6] The State Department claimed the IIF had 9,159 men assigned as of the Iraq Weekly Status Report for January 12, 2005.

The February 2007 release said the Division was headquartered in Habbaniyah, Al Anbar and operates from Baghdad to Ramadi.

Mitchell Prothero of the McClatchy Foreign Staff reported July 14, 2014 that "the 1st Division also is basically gone, losing two brigades in Anbar province earlier in the year, then two more during last month's Islamic State onslaught, including one brigade that in the words of [a] senior Iraqi politician was "decimated" in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.