The film is inspired by the Haditha killings incident that occurred three months after the Battle of Haditha in the Iraq War. On 19 November 2005 in Haditha, a city in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar Governorate, 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women, and children were killed by a group of United States Marine Corps following an incident where an I.E.D killed one Marine and seriously wounded two others. Since the release of the film, the US military controversially dropped all charges to all Marines involved.