In response to a law allowing for the partitioning of Iraq into autonomous regions, members of the Mutayibeen Coalition ("Khalf al-Mutayibeen"), a coalition of Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq, announced the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq encompassing parts of 6 of Iraq's 18 provinces on 15 October 2006. Yet another show of defiance came on 18 October when Sunni fighters brazenly paraded in Ramadi. Similar parades were held two days later in several towns across western Iraq, two of which occurred within two miles of U.S. military bases.