Karbala

On April 3, 2004, during the Ashura holiday, Iraqi militants supporting Shiite leader Muktada As-Sadr initiated an uprising in the area controlled by Polish forces. Polish troops, alongside Bulgarian soldiers and Iraqi police, were assigned to protect City Hall under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Grzegorz Kaliciak. This confrontation escalated into the largest military engagement for Poland since World War II. Remarkably, no allied soldiers lost their lives, while approximately 80 insurgents were killed in the counter-offensive.