Western Asia

The Abu Nawas pumping station on the Tigris River, which supplies water to Sadr City and other treatment plants in Baghdad, is severely damaged during the 2003 conflict.

A bomb placed near a water main line explodes, breaking the pipe and forcing engineers to shut off the water supply to the entire city of Baghdad, Iraq. Major flooding in the surrounding neighborhood is caused as well.

Four Christian missionaries from the U.S. are killed and one other seriously wounded when they are attacked while working on a water project in Mosul, Iraq.

A driver of a truck transporting mineral water in Mosul, Iraq is killed when his truck is set on fire.

Three engineers and one contractor, employed by the city water and sewage board, are kidnapped in Kirkuk, Iraq. No reports could be found detailing the outcome of the kidnapping.

During the US-led invasion of Iraq, water systems are reportedly damaged or destroyed by different parties, and major dams are military objectives of the US forces. Damage directly attributable to the war includes vast segments of the water distribution system and the Baghdad water system, damaged by a missile.

Insurgents bomb a main water pipeline in Baghdad. City engineers say this is the first strike against Baghdad’s water system during the Iraq War, which began in March 2003. The bombing occurs around seven in the morning, when a blue Volkswagen Passat stops on an overpass near the Nidaa mosque and an explosive is fired at the six-foot-wide water main in the northern part of Baghdad, said Hayder Muhammad, the chief engineer for the city’s water treatment plants.

A group of three Iraqi men are shot and killed while transporting water to a military base near Taji, Iraq.