The most dangerous insurgent area is the Sunni Triangle, a mostly Sunni-Muslim area just north of Baghdad.

Samarra is a key city in Salahaddin province, a major part of the so-called Sunni Triangle where insurgents have been active since shortly after 2003 invasion by the United States of America.

By June, an insurgency was clearly underway in central and northern Iraq, especially in the area known as the Sunni Triangle.

On November 30, 2003, a U. S. convoy traveling through the town of Samarra in the Sunni Triangle was ambushed by over 100 Iraqi guerillas, reportedly wearing trademark Fedayeen Saddam uniforms.

Map of the Sunni Triangle

The Sunni Triangle is a densely-populated region of Iraq to the northwest of Baghdad that is inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslim Arabs.

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.

# REDIRECT Sunni Triangle

Operation Ivy Blizzard, occurred on December 17, 2003, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a counterinsurgent sweep of the Iraqi town of Samarra ( part of the Sunni Triangle ).

Following the twin Sunni and Shiite uprisings of the spring and summer of 2004, and the subsequent decrease in U. S patrols and the creation of " no-go " areas in the Sunni Triangle, Ansar al-Sunna was believed to be part of a loose coalition of insurgent groups ( also including guerrillas from Mohammad's Army and al-Tawhid wal-Jihad ) controlling the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, and Baquba ( U. S. offensives later largely wrested control from Baquba, Fallujah, and Samarra, although underground guerrilla resistance forces still have a strong presence in those cities ).

Its name also appeared with eleven other insurgent groups on leaflets passed out in the Sunni Triangle cities of Ramadi and Fallujah from January 31, 2004 to February 1, 2004.

The battle also pushed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into the public spotlight as the best-known commander of anti-Coalition forces in Iraq, and brought public attention to the concept of a Sunni Triangle.

In May 2003, after the Iraqi conventional forces had been defeated and disbanded, the U. S. military noticed a gradually increasing flurry of attacks on U. S. troops in various regions of the so-called " Sunni Triangle ", especially in Baghdad and in the regions around Fallujah and Tikrit.

In response, on June 9, the U. S. military launched Operation Peninsula Strike, in which 2, 000 soldiers from Task Force Iron Horse swept through the Tigris River peninsula of Thuluiya in the Sunni Triangle, detaining 397 Iraqis.

A series of similar operations were launched throughout the summer in the Sunni Triangle, such as Operation Sidewinder, Operation Soda Mountain, and Operation Ivy Serpent.

The next phase began soon afterwards, on October 5, when 3, 000 coalition and Iraqi troops began a sweep against Sunni insurgents through northern Babil province just south of Baghdad, an area also known as the " Triangle of Death " for the amount of hostage-taking and guerrilla violence in the area.

A subsequent book by Bob Babcock ( OIF 1: A Year in the Sunni Triangle, St. John's Press, 2005 ) almost totally ignored 3 – 16 FA's achievements in this vein, including the first trained platoons of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps ( ICDC ) which was the precursor to the Iraqi National Guard.

The guerrillas primarily operated in the Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad, where before the war, the Ba ' ath Party was an omnipresent part of society and support for Saddam Hussein was strongest.

A Lebanese public opinion poll taken in August 2006 shows that most of the Shia did not believe that Hezbollah should disarm after the 2006 Lebanon war, while the majority of Sunni, Druze and Christians believed that they should.

While Sunni Islam was the state religion, there was not widespread pressure to convert ; indeed, Jahangir specifically warned his nobles that they " should not force Islam on anyone .” In the first century of Islamic expansion this attitude was taken partially because of concerns that an absence of non-Muslims would deprive the state of a valuable source of revenue.

Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Sunni Islam hold that for all practical purposes veneration should be considered the same as prayer ; Orthodox Judaism ( arguably with the exception of some Chasidic practices ), orthodox Sunni Islam, and most kinds of Protestantism forbid veneration of saints or angels, classifying these actions as akin to idolatry.

Many traditional Sunni Islamic lawyers agree that to be in keeping with Islam, a government should have some form of council of consultation or majlis al-shura, although it must recognize that God and not the people are sovereign and that it is subordinate to Sharia law.

Capable men who would lead well were preferred over an ineffectual direct heir, as there was no basis in the majority Sunni view that the head of state or governor should be chosen based on lineage alone.

He did so to preserve the tradition that the president, and by implication anyone acting in that role, should be a Maronite Christian, thereby going against the tradition of reserving the premiership for a Sunni Muslim.

According to Sunni scholars Hasan stipulated that Muawiyah should follow the Qur ' an and the Sunnah, allow a parliament ( shura ) as regards the caliphate after his death and refrain from any acts of revenge.

According to Sunni scholars, Muslims of the past should be considered companions if they had any contact with Muhammad, and they were not liars or opposed to him and his teachings.

Sunni Islam stipulates that the head of state, the caliph, should be selected by Shura – elected by Muslims or their representatives.

The following ahadith describe how ghusl should be performed by Sunni Muslims.

While the Shi ' ites take the meaning ' master ' or ' ruler ', some Sunni scholars say that Muhammad was merely saying that anyone who was his friend should also befriend Ali.

The caliph, who had initially preferred the weak Buyids over the strong Seljuks despite the latter's Sunni orthodoxy, declared that Toghrül's name should be recited before the al-Malik al-Rahim in the Friday sermons.

In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar.

The president was required to be a Christian ( in practice, a Maronite ), the prime minister a Sunni Muslim.

There are strict and detailed requirements in Sunni fiqh for a place of worship to be considered a masjid, with places that do not meet these requirements regarded as musallas.

The second Sunni caliph Umar at one time prohibited women from attending mosques especially at night because he feared they may be teased by males, so he required them to pray at home.

This might be from one to another denomination within the same religion, for example, Christian Baptist to Methodist or Catholic, Muslim Shi ' a to Sunni.

The understanding of the divine spiritual endowment of the rooster within Islam, may be evidenced in the words of Muhammad of that Abrahamic religion in one of the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam, stating that of " when you hear the crowing of cocks, ask for Allah's Blessings for they have seen an angel " as well as the mention where " the cock is also venerated in Islam: it was the giant bird seen by Muhammad in the First Heaven crowing.

A small number of Sunni Muslims can be found along the coastal areas.

Shia Muslims believe this to be Muhammad's appointment of Ali as his successor, while Sunni Muslims believe it a simple defense of Ali in the face of unjust criticism.

For the contract to be valid there must be two witnesses under Sunni jurisprudence.

Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve ... let there be no compulsion in religion "-that all monotheistic religions or people of the book have a chance of salvation, to the most exclusive teaching common amongst Salafis and Wahhabis, and supported by several works of medieval Islamic theology and by traditions ( hadith ) which are considered correct ( sahih ) by Sunni Muslims, for the most part are summed up in Surah 9: 5, 29: " Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them, and besiege them, and lay in wait in every stratagem of war.

The Ash ' ari school of Sunni aqidah ( theology ) holds that those who had never heard of the message of Islam, by virtue of isolation, can still be saved by the grace of Allah, similar to Karl Rahner's concept of the Anonymous Christian.

The caliph Abū Bakr, believed by Sunni Muslims to be Muhammad's successor, was the first to institute a statutory zakat system.

Muhammad's birthday is considered by Sunni Muslims to be the 12th day of the month of Rabi '- ul-Awwal, the third month of the Muslim calendar, corresponding to April 22, 571.

Islam is the religion, 99 % are said to be Sunni Muslims.

Also said to be the place of death of Muhammad b. Isma ' il al-Bukhari, one of the six prominent collectors of hadith of Sunni Islam.

The name " ayatollah " originates from the Quran where the Shi ' a, unlike the Sunni, interpret that human beings can also be regarded as signs of God, the literal translation of the title.

Among Sunni Muslims, the Mount is widely considered to be the third holiest site in Islam.

They may be almost exclusively selected from a particular group ( for example, Sunni Arabs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the nomenklatura in the Soviet Union, or the Junkers in Imperial Germany ) that support the regime in return for such favors.

Some modern Sunni Muslims believe that Islam requires all decisions made by and for the Muslim societies to be made by shura of the Muslim community and believe this to be the basis for implementing representative democracy.