It is estimated that 16
L3s were purchased by Iraq from Italy before
World War II. On 22 March 1941, two of these Iraqi L3s were reported to have been put out of action near Fallujah during the Anglo-Iraqi War. Later, Iraq received WWII tanks from the British after they left, and then turned to the Soviet Bloc for more modern designs of the time such as the T-55, T62, T69, T72. Iraq began the Iran–Iraq War confident their new tanks from the Soviet Bloc would allow them victory. The Iraqis could mobilize up to 12
mechanised divisions, and morale was running high. The war however, led to eight years of back and forth battles, with heavy losses on both sides. The need for replacement of its tanks forces led Iraq to invade Kuwait which led to the start of the
Persian Gulf War. Iraqi-operated many T-62s but it lacked high powered optics, thermal sights and ballistic computers compared to their adversaries in the Gulf War. The Iraqi
3rd Armoured Division alone lost about a hundred T-62 tanks, while no Abrams or Challengers were lost to enemy fire. The
Lion of Babylon (or Asad Babil) was a name given to what was a locally produced variant of the Soviet
T-72 tank during the late-1980s. The name is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to standard T-72s in Iraqi service, which were imported from the Soviet Union and Poland. In 1986 a West German company built a factory in Taji to manufacture steel for several military uses. It was enlisted to retrofit and rebuild tanks already on duty in the Iraqi Army, such as
T-54/55s,
T-62s, and several hundred of Soviet and Polish T-72s, The assembly was to start in 1989 and the tanks would receive the name Asad Babil (Lion of Babylon). According to Polish officials not a single T-72M1 was finished, even though in 1988 a T-72M was displayed on an Iraqi arms show, which was claimed to be locally produced. A number of Iraqi officials such as Lt. General Amer Rashid however did not like the idea of being dependent on knockdown kits supplied by another country and pushed for the complete production of the T-72M1 tank instead. Some combat useless Type 59/69s were emplaced as
decoys or mere obstacles. in
Camp Taji, Iraq. After the war, the Iraqis received American tanks such as the M1 Abrams which were used in the fight against ISIS. The
9th Armoured Division of the
Iraqi Army, was reformed after the recreation of the Iraqi Army began after 2003. A 2006 article in
ARMY Magazine described how the division was being built from the 'wreckage of the old
Republican Guard. ..[i]ts facilities occupy the greater portion of
Camp Taji, Iraq, in scores of refurbished buildings that once belonged to the Republican Guard, and much of its equipment was salvaged' from the old regime's junk. T-55 tanks and '
armoured personnel carriers for two of its three brigades were cobbled together from battle-damaged vehicles..' at Camp Taji. Contractors rebuilt functioning equipment from the scrap. Used
T-72 tanks for the division's third brigade were to be purchased from a former
Soviet Bloc country. It was certified and assumed responsibility of the battle space of north
Baghdad Governorate on June 26, 2006. In September 2006,
ARMY Magazine said that two of the division's brigades had already been fielded and were operationally partnered with U.S. Army units. The division had carried out its first
command post exercise in the northern summer of 2006. One of the division's commanders has been General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, who was eventually promoted to Lieutenant General and took over the
Ninevah Operational Command. Other divisional commander have included Major General Bashar Mahmood Ayob (2006) and, as of April 2009, Major General Qassim Jassem Nazal. The 3rd Armoured Division was the elite unit of the army, and had fought
Persian Gulf War, operations in the 1990s, and the
2003 invasion of Iraq. It was disbanded when the Iraqi Armed Forces were formally dissolved by
Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2, and reformed after 2003. Its units were part of the original three division New Iraqi Army. The 3rd Division was transferred from coalition control to the
Iraqi Ground Forces Command on 1 December 2006. In 2014, the 6th Brigade of the 3rd Division was described as 'the first line of Mosul's defence' against
ISIS. Infantry, armour and tanks had been shifted to Anbar in the fight there with ISIS, and had left Mosul with virtually no tanks and a shortage of artillery,' according to Lieutenant General
Mahdi Gharawi, commander of the Ninevah operational command. During the fight in Mosul, the
offensive in Northern Iraq during June 2014, the division, was almost totally destroyed in fighting with ISIS. The exception appeared to be the 4th Battalion of the 10th Brigade, which had been defending a position outside
Tall Afar in early July 2014. Iraq became to look for adding more tanks for its army during its fight with ISIS, and had 73 T-90S/SK tanks ordered in 2016, reportedly followed by another in 2017. The total sum of the contract for the tanks may exceed one billion U.S. dollars confirmed by Russian presidential aide
Vladimir Kozhin. Deliveries reportedly began in November 2017. The first deliveries were confirmed in February 2018. 75 tanks delivered as of June 2018. Two more parties were delivered as of April 2019. Iraq also used tanks captured in various conflict such as M4 and M4/105 Shermans, M51 Shermans , M36 tanks destroyers, and some captured ex-Iranian Chieftains, M47, M48, and M60 Pattons. ==Iraq organization of armored forces==