Top 10 Battles for the Control of Iraq

For more than 4500 years many peoples have fought for dominance in what is now modern day Iraq (Mesopotamia). Though it is the United States and its "coalition of the willing" that now militarily occupies the country, the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and British have all buried their dead -- not to mention the indigenous peoples, too -- in this land.

Iraq rests in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the surrounding plain, lying at the heart of the fabled "Fertile Crescent." Much fought-over, its last native-born rulers before the 20th century were Nebuchadnezzar II and his descendants, who fell to Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC.

From the earliest times, the struggles for the region have often been dictated by the need for natural resources. Here are some key battles from the violent history of Iraq.

-- Tom X. Chao