Sunni Triangle

After the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the area became a focus of armed Sunni opposition to Coalition Provisional Authority rule.

On December 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured in a raid on the village of Ad-Dawr about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of Tikrit.

The term "Sunni triangle" was used intermittently from the 1970s among academic Iraq specialists, usually to differentiate it from Iraqi Kurdistan in the north and the Shia regions to the south.

An early use in mainstream media is a San Francisco Chronicle article of September 14, 2002, in which former United Nations 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."

It became commonplace in reports on the US-led Multi-National Force – Iraq's efforts to control the region.

Map of the Sunni Triangle, which is a simplified view of the area mostly inhabited by Sunni Muslim Arabs.
A 2003 CIA Factbook map which shows the area mostly inhabited by Sunni Muslim Arabs in light orange.