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Weapons of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq
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:This article covers the weapons used in the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. On April 9, 2003, Baghdad was formally secured. As the summer of 2003 gave way to autumn, the pattern of anti-occupation attacks shifted to include repeated, deadly suicide car bombings against high-profile targets in Baghdad, such as the headquarters of the UN and the Red Cross, foreign embassies, and police stations of the newly-formed post-Saddam Iraqi police force. At the same time, attacks on individual U.S. soldiers and vehicles, often in the form of buried roadside bombs, went on. The coalition counterinsurgency began on June 9, 2003 in response to an increase in guerilla attacks that began in late May. Coalition Forces The invasion itself was swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. Coalition forces moved into Baghdad with limited resistance; Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat. Coalition *United States **United States Marine Corps ***Edged Weapons ****KA-BAR Knife ****M6 Bayonet ****M7 Bayonet ****M9 Bayonet ****OKC-3S Bayonet ***Handguns ****Beretta M9 ****Beretta M9A1 ***Rifles ****M-16 Rifle ****M-4 Carbine ****M14 Rifle ***Grenades ****M67 grenade Iraqi army and Insurgents For an extensive list of weaponry used by the Iraqi Army at the beginning of the war, see Military of Iraq. Currently, armed Iraqi resistance is composed of over a dozen major insurgent organizations and countless smaller cells. Foreign fighters and Islamists have entered the country, mostly through the porous desert borders of Syria and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi guerillas operate in small squad sized formations of five to ten men. Assaults combining the following weapons and tactics, involving IEDs, RPGs, mortars, and car bombs all at once, have increasingly appeared. * Insurgents weapons **AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle **Type 69 RPG grenade launcher **RPG-7 grenade launcher **RPG-7D grenade launcher **RPG-7V2 grenade launcher **RPG-7D3 grenade launcher **RPG-29 grenade launcher **AGS-17 grenade launcher **PKM machine gun **60 mm and 81 mm mortars **Multiple rocket launchers **Strela-2M (SA-7B) surface-to-air missile **Strela-3 (SA-14) surface-to-air missile * Improvised explosive devices **Improvised Explosive Device, or IED, such as roadside bombs and suicide bombs **Vehicle Borne IED (see car bomb or truck bomb) **Improvised rocket See Also
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