The Assassin's Gate is one of four primary points of entry to the

Green Zone The Green Zone () is the most common name for the International Zone of Baghdad. It is a area in the Karkh, Karkh district of central Baghdad, Iraq. It is the chief government precinct and the seat of the Iraqi government. History Pre-200 ...

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. The name originates from Assassins Company, a US Army armor unit (Alpha Company - radio call sign "Assassins" - 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regt., 2nd Brigade, 3D Infantry Division, which combined with combat engineer and infantry companies to form Task Force 464 in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) In the taking of Baghdad on April 7, 2003, Assassins Company led the assault on the government center and palace district that later became the Green Zone. On April 8, the unit repelled a significant pre-dawn counterattack through Assassins' Gate, by the Jumhuriyah Bridge. As many as 60 Iraqi soldiers and fedayeen fighters are reported to have been killed in about four hours of fighting. Several of the American tankers up in their hatches were wounded by fire coming down from surrounding buildings before

A-10 Warthog The Fairchild Republic A-10 , also infamously known under the nickname , is a single-seat, twin- turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since ...

s and

F/A-18 The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, fighter and attack airc ...

s were called in to destroy the buildings and work over a bunker complex in the adjacent park. Around mid-morning, while searching for a suspected Iraqi forward artillery observer whose radio transmissions were being monitored, one of the tanks fired at the Hotel Palestine from the Jumhuriyah Bridge, killing two European journalists the tank commander said he believed were enemy observers. This prompted accusations by media groups of purposeful targeting of journalists. A Spanish judge brought murder charges against the tank commander, the company commander and the battalion commander. A US military investigation cleared the soldiers of any intentional wrongdoing. Assassins Company provided security at the gate for several months after the invasion, at one point facing a hostile crowd at the barricade, with the order given to fix bayonets, while at least one soldier was stabbed and wounded by someone in the crowd, according to soldiers who were present. The name Assassins' Gate does not have any Iraqi origin. It is described as "a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

." This gate was also the site of a devastating attack from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive that left a deep crater early one morning on January 18, 2004. Many civilians were killed as they entered the gate for their daily jobs inside the Green Zone.

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Buildings and structures in Baghdad Arches and vaults Domes City gates Iraq War sites in Baghdad {{iraq-struct-stub