Ramadan Offensive (2003)
The heightened series of attacks coincided with Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims fast from sunrise until sunset in commemoration of Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE.[2] On the morning of October 26, 2003, the first day of Ramadan, suicide bombers drove 5 carloads of explosives into 5 buildings, the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and four Iraqi police stations, as the insurgent offensive began.[3] That morning in the early hours in Baghdad insurgents fired an improvised multiple-tube launcher mounted in a trailer that was made up to look like a mobile generator, about 400 meters from the al-Rashid Hotel.At the start of the offensive on October 27, 2003, insurgents staged a coordinated suicide attack targeting the Red Cross compound, and four Iraqi police stations in Baghdad.In 1968, the attacks came at the onset of the Vietnamese New Year, a holiday that American command believed would herald a temporary quieting of the violence.