Violence Dips During Islamic State’s Latest Offensive

(Iraqi News)

In April the Islamic State announced its latest annual spring-summer offensive Revenge of the Levant. Attacks spiked after a winter drop off. In June however, attacks went back down to roughly the same number as April.

There was a total of 99 Incidents in June. 6 of those were likely by pro-Iran groups however attempting to send a message of the United States during tensions between Washington and Tehran. That meant there were 93 by the Islamic State. That was a drop from the 135 recorded in May, and close to the 97 in April. Violence always goes up and down in Iraq, but the decline could be a sign that the militants are finding it difficult to maintain their momentum. That could be the result of a number of factors from heavier deployment of Iraqi forces to troubled areas, more targeted raids, to the lack of finances, etc. It will take more months to see what the overall trend is.

One major note is that two main sources on security in Iraq have been offline the entire month. That means that there were likely more attacks then recorded.

Security Incidents In Iraq By Province

Province	Jun 1-7	Jun 8-14	Jun 15-21	Jun 22-28	Jun 29-30
Anbar	8	1	1	1	2
Babil	1	-	2	-	-
Baghdad	3	4	7/5	1	-
Basra	-	-	0/2	-	-
Diyala	7	9	3	2	6
Kirkuk	3	5	-	10	-
Ninewa	4	2	3	2	-
Salahaddin	-	4	3	2	1
TOTALS	26	25	21/16	18	9

Casualties In Iraq By Province

Province	Jun 1-7	Jun 8-14	Jun 15-21	Jun 22-28	Jun 29-30
Anbar	7 (1K, 6W)	1 (1W)	-	-	-
Babil	-	-	2 (2W)	-	-
Baghdad	28 (9K, 19W)	1 (1K)	4 (4K)	1 (1K)	-
Basra	-	-	3 (3W)	-	-
Diyala	9 (6K, 3W)	5 (2K, 3W)	4 (4W)	2 (1K, 1W)	12 (3K, 9W)
Kirkuk	10 (2K, 8W)	8 (5K, 3W)	-	40 (11K, 29W)	-
Ninewa	9 (1K, 8W)	24 (20K, 4W)	2 (2W)	11 (3K, 8W)	-
Salahaddin	-	5 (1K, 4W)	4 (2K, 2W)	4 (1K, 3W)	-
TOTALS	63 (19K, 44W)	44 (29K, 15W)	19/16 (6K, 13/10W)	58 (17 K, 41W)	12 (3K, 9W)

There were 74 deaths and 122 wounded during the month. 3 of the wounded were by rocket fire on a complex used by international oil companies in Basra and likely done by a pro-Iran group. In total, 5 Hashd al-Shaabi, 21 Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and 48 civilians lost their lives, along with 21 Hashd, 39 ISF, and 62 civilians who were injured. Kirkuk with 58 casualties led the eight provinces reporting losses in July.

Violence in Anbar continues to fluctuate up and down. In January there were 16 incidents, going up to 27 in February, way down to 5 in March, up to 16 in April, back down to 7 in May, and then an increase to 13 in June. Almost all the incidents this month occurred in the first week of the month when there were 8 including five gun battles, and three suicide bombers killed. After that attacks puttered out to just 1-2 per week.

There were 13 incidents in Baghdad. That was the most since 14 in December 2018. IS operations in the capital province have completely fallen off since the winter of 2018. In September, during the last annual offensive there were 47 attacks in Baghdad. That went down to 30 in October, and then 13 in November and as low as 4 in March, before slightly crawling upwards to 10 in April and May each. The insurgents are obviously trying to return to the capital, but almost all the attacks are in the outer villages. Not only that but they are all small shootings and IEDs. There were two exceptions in June. First, IS set off an IED in Tarmiya in the outer north, and then when the ISF went to investigate they were ambushed leading to 6 ISF deaths and 15 wounded. Three days later they attacked a group of civilians in a town in that district leaving 2 dead and 4 wounded. If the organization wants to remain relevant, seriously threaten the government and earn a larger amount of money it has to make a comeback in Baghdad. So far it’s struggling to do that.

The rural areas of Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa and Salahaddin are where IS is rebuilding. All four saw a decrease in attacks in June. Diyala is regularly the most violence governorate in the country. There were 27 attacks in June down from 35 in May. In Kirkuk attacks went from 35 in May to 18 in June. Ninewa saw a drop from 25 incidents in May to 10 in June. Finally, Salahaddin went from 20 in May to 9 in June.

Nearly every area of Diyala was hit in June, but almost half the attacks, 12 total were in the Khanaqin-Jalawla districts in the northeast. In October 2017, the central government took over the area from the Kurds after their independence referendum. There are not enough security forces there, and those that are compete with each other. This is being exploited and hence the spate of attacks there in recent months. There was only one suicide bombing in the country during the month and that was in Khanaqin. The militants were never able to seize any territory in the province in 2014, so it was the first place it reverted back to an insurgency allowing it more time to re-organize, hence the high level of operations there.

Violence in Kirkuk usually occurs in the south, but there were 8 attacks in Kirkuk City in June. That included a spate of IEDs and attacks upon a checkpoint and patrol at the end of the month. Kirkuk City is one of the few urban areas that IS still has access to. When the province was being liberated IS withdrew rather than fight. That allowed it to maintain many of its cadres there. They appear to be more involved in rebuilding than carrying out attacks however, as incidents have been very low since November 2018.

Incidents in Ninewa have gone through wide fluctuations. There were 9 attacks in January, up to 20 in February, down to 11 in March, and then 19 in April, 29 in May before 10 in June. That included four farms being burned. Two of the incidents were also old IEDs going off in Mosul, leftovers from the battle for the city.

Salahaddin was relatively quiet as well. There was one IED ambush in response to another IED that hit a Mukhtar’s house and two gun battles, but otherwise there was only an average of one attack every three days.

Islamic State Activity in Iraq 2018-19

Anbar	Shootings (Totals)	IEDs/ Sticky Bombs (Totals)	Gun Battles	Attacks on Checkpoints	Attacks on Mukhtars/ Sheikhs	Kidnappings	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs
2018 Totals	45	67	13	4	6	5	7	3
Jan 2019	6	4	1	-	2	1	1	1
Feb	10	11	4	1	1	4	-	-
Mar	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Apr	1	8	1	-	-	1	-	1
May	3	3	-	-	1	-	-	2
Jun	7	2	4	-	1	-	-	-
2019 Totals	29	29	10	1	5	6	1	4

Diyala	Shootings (Totals)	IEDs/ Sticky Bombs (Totals)	Gun Battles	Attacks on Checkpoints	Attacks on Mukhtars/ Sheikhs	Kidnappings	Attacks on Towns	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs
2018 Totals	219	198	47	43	5	13	25	3	1
Jan 2019	21	2	3	8	-	-	1	-	-
Feb	18	2	5	7	-	-	3	-	-
Mar	7	6	1	2	-	-	-	-	-
Apr	13	15	2	4	1	-	1	-	-
May	11	13	3	5	-	-	13 (9 Farms Burned)	-	-
Jun	15	8	2	4	-	1	-	1	-
2019 Totals	85	46	16	30	1	1	18	1	-

Kirkuk	Shootings (Totals)	IEDs/ Sticky Bombs (Totals)	Gun Battles	Attacks on Checkpoints	Attacks on Mukhtars/ Sheikhs	Kidnappings	Attacks on Towns	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs
2018 Totals	172	182	39	18	10	14	29	9	6
Jan 2019	8	17	-	4	2	3	-	-	1
Feb	9	5	3	-	-	2	1	-	-
Mar	5	11	2	1	2	-	2	-	-
Apr	5	9	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
May	11	18	2	3	1	-	13 (13 Farms Burned)	-	-
Jun	5	10	1	2	-	-	-	-	-
2019 Totals	43	75	11	10	5	5	16	-	1

Ninewa	Shootings (Totals)	IEDs/ Sticky Bombs (Totals)	Gun Battles	Attacks on Checkpoints	Attacks on Mukhtars/ Sheikhs	Kidnappings	Attacks on Towns	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs
2018 Totals	139	74	43	7	5	6	6	2	3
Jan 2019	6	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-
Feb	8	3	2	2	-	-	1	-	1
Mar	6	1	3	-	-	-	1	-	1
Apr	6	6	1	-	1	2	2	-	-
May	8	8	1	-	1	2	6 (5 Farms Burned)	-	1
Jun	2	5	-	-	1	-	4 (4 Farms Burned)	-	-
2019 Totals	36	23	7	2	4	4	14	-	3

Salahaddin	Shootings (Totals)	IEDs/ Sticky Bombs (Totals)	Gun Battles	Attacks on Checkpoints	Attacks on Mukhtars/ Sheikhs	Kidnappings	Attacks on Towns	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs
2018 Totals	110	102	41	18	1	16	4	9	5
Jan 2019	5	5	3	1	-	3	-	-	1
Feb	7	11	3	-	-	2	1	1	-
Mar	3	5	2	-	-	-	-	-	1
Apr	2	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	1
May	10	9	4	1	1	-	6 (5 Farms Burned)	-	-
Jun	4	3	2	-	1	-	-	-	-
2019 Totals	31	35	15	2	2	5	7	1	3

(Gun Battles, Attacks on Checkpoints, Attacks on Mukhtars, Attacks on Towns are all subsets of the total number of shootings and IEDs/Sticky Bombs reported)

Suicide-Car Bombs In Iraq 2018-19

Month	Suicide Bombers	Car Bombs	Totals
Jan	7 (1- Diyala, 3 – Baghdad/Baghdad, 3 - Kirkuk)	6 (1- Anbar, 1 – Diyala, 1 – Kirkuk, 1 – Salahaddin, 2 - Babil)	13
Feb	4 (1 – Anbar/Ramadi 1 – Diyala 1 – Kirkuk 1 - Ninewa)	-	4
Mar	2 (1 – Kirkuk/Kirkuk 1 - Salahaddin)	1 (1 – Kirkuk)	3
Apr	4 (1 - Salahaddin 3 – Anbar)	1 (1 – Kirkuk/Kirkuk)	5
May	8 (1 – Diyala 1 - Salahaddin) 2 – Baghdad/1 - Baghdad 4 - Kirkuk)	-	8
Jun		1 (1 – Salahaddin/Tikrit)	1
Jul	1 (1 – Salahaddin/Tikrit)	1 (1 – Kirkuk/Kirkuk)	2
Aug	1 (1 – Salahaddin)	2 (1 – Anbar, 1 – Kirkuk)	3
Sep	6 (1 – Ninewa) 2 – Anbar 3 – Salahaddin)	2 (1 – Kirkuk 1 – Salahaddin)	8
Oct	2 (1 – Anbar/Fallujah 1 – Salahaddin)	3 (1 – Anbar/Fallujah 1 – Kirkuk/Kirkuk 1 - Ninewa)	5
Nov	-	3 (1 – Ninewa/Mosul 2 – Salahaddin/Tikrit)	3
Dec	-	1 (1 – Ninewa)	1
Jan	1 (1 – Anbar)	3 (1 – Anbar 1 – Kirkuk 1 – Salahaddin/Tikrit)	4
Feb	1 (1 – Salahaddin)	1 (1 – Ninewa/Mosul)	2
Mar	-	1 (1 – Ninewa/Mosul)	1
Apr	-	2 (1 – Anbar 1 - Salahaddin)	2
May	1 (1 – Baghdad)	3 (2 – Anbar 1 – Ninewa)	4
Jun	1 (1 – Diyala)	-	1

Security In Iraq 2018-19

Week	Security Incidents (Total/By IS)	Dead (Total/By IS)	Wounded (Total/By IS)
Jan 1-7	62/60	45	63
Jan 8-14	58/56	58/56	66/63
Jan 15-21	62/59	151	151
Jan 22-28	59/51	140/136	65/63
Jan 29-31	24	21	21
JAN 2018	265/ 250 by IS	417/ 409 by IS (196 Violent Deaths)	366/ 361 by IS
Feb 1-7	58/56	192/141	62/60
Feb 8-14	57	58	91
Feb 15-21	53/52	343	43
Feb 22-28	46/44	38/37	70/68
FEB	214/ 209 by IS	631/ 579 by IS (215 Violent Deaths)	266/ 262 by IS
Mar 1-7	68/64	115/108	79/77
Mar 8-14	52	75	59
Mar 15-21	64/59	165/119	98
Mar 22-28	77/64	210/87	61/60
Mar 29-31	19/18	26/25	34
MAR	280/ 257 by IS	591/ 414 by IS (446 Violent Deaths)	331/ 328 by IS
Apr 1-7	38/34	172/140	27/25
Apr 8-14	60/52	173/136	81/72
Apr 15-21	43/35	63/18	72/70
Apr 22-28	40/31	60/30	39/33
Apr 29-30	12/11	14/11	4
APR	193/ 163 by IS	482/ 335 by IS (236 Violent Deaths)	223/ 204 by IS
May 1-7	45/39	52/43	55/54
May 8-14	55/51	68/46	49
May 15-21	35/32	55/26	80/75
May 22-28	49/46	72/62	51/49
May 29-31	16/13	39/30	15
MAY	200/ 181 by IS	286/ 207 by IS (261 Violent Deaths)	250/ 242 by IS
Jun 1-7	50/44	96/87	29/28
Jun 8-14	67/59	107/47	88
Jun 15-21	40/35	82/28	19
Jun 22-28	45/44	53/38	62
Jun 29-30	17/15	21/16	14
JUN	219/ 197 by IS	359/ 216 by IS (315 Violent Deaths)	212/ 211 by IS
Jul 1-7	50/49	56/52	90
Jul 8-14	42/39	56/47	31
Jul 15-21	50/45	59/42	63
Jul 22-28	29/24	61/53	19/15
Jul 29-31	23/21	25/13	11
JUL	194/ 178 by IS	257/ 207 by IS (212 Violent Deaths)	214/ 210 by IS
Aug 1-7	43/39	49/45	30/29
Aug 8-14	43/42	38	44
Aug 15-21	38/35	24/21	40/37
Aug 22-28	35/31	25/19	61
Aug 29-31	27/24	68/30	43
AUG	186/ 171 by IS	204/ 153 by IS (189 Violent Deaths)	218/ 214 by IS
Sep 1-7	38	44	54
Sep 8-14	48/43	63/55	127
Sep 15-21	44/38	90/74	70
Sep 22-28	36/33	22/17	27/26
Sep 29-30	9/6	19/10	29/25
SEP	175/ 158 by IS	237/ 200 by IS (179 Violent Deaths)	307/ 302 by IS
Oct 1-7	54/49	85/25	92
Oct 8-14	43/41	161/152	41
Oct 15-21	54/50	87/72	35
Oct 22-28	24/23	24/20	53
Oct 29-31	23	10	24
OCT	198/ 186 by IS	367/ 279 by IS (177 Violent Deaths)	245 by IS
Nov 1-7	32/31	75/69	36
Nov 8-14	39/31	111/63	19
Nov 15-21	30/27	51/43	29
Nov 22-28	26/21	35/25	30
Nov 29-30	9/8	4	27
NOV	136/ 118 by IS	276/ 204 by IS (183 Violent Deaths_	141 by IS
Dec 1-7	22/15	21/8	11
Dec 8-14	22	15	22
Dec 15-21	23/21	23/16	17
Dec 22-28	30/28	24/18	37
Dec 29-31	15/14	225/220	4
DEC	112/ 100 by IS	308/ 277 by IS (96 Violent Deaths)	91 by IS
Jan 1-7	32/31	17/10	24
Jan 8-14	32/30	97/94	53
Jan 15-21	22/18	17/11	16/14
Jan 22-28	27/22	36/17	31
Jan 29-31	12	7	6
JAN	114	139	130
Feb 1-7	29/28	76	30
Feb 8-14	24	26	18
Feb 15-21	40	112	12
Feb 22-28	25	36	70
FEB	118	250	130
Mar 1-7	13	22	45
Mar 8-14	19/18	75/10	37
Mar 15-21	12/11	66/37	21/11
Mar 22-28	13/12	8/5	1
Mar 29-31	6	8	7
MAR	61	147	101
Apr 1-7	20	22	13
Apr 8-14	41	28	42
Apr 15-21	17/16	9/8	26
Apr 22-28	19/18	45/10	15
Apr 29-30	2	1	4
APR	99	105	100
May 1-7	18/17	9	17
May 8-14	24	31	41
May 15-21	37/36	62	39
May 22-28	43	39	54
May 29-31	13	16	48
MAY	136/135	162	199
Jun 1-7	26	19	44
Jun 8-14	25	29	15
Jun 15-21	21/16	6	13/10
Jun 22-28	18	17	41
Jun 29-30	9	3	9
JUN	99/93	74	122/119

Violence By Province Jun, 2019

Province	Violence
Anbar	13 Incidents 1 Killed 1 ISF 7 Wounded 1 Hashd 2 Civilians 4 ISF 7 Shootings 2 IEDs 1 Grenade 1 Suicide Motorcycle Bomber Killed 2 Suicide Bombers Killed 1 Car Bomb Dismantled
Babil	3 Incidents 2 Wounded 2 ISF 1 Shooting 1 IED 1 Mortar
Baghdad	15/13 Incidents 15 Killed 6 ISF 9 Civilians 19 Wounded 4 Civilians 15 ISF 10 Shootings 3 IEDs 2 Rockets 1 Mortar
Basra	0/2 Incidents 3 Wounded 3 Civilians 2 Rockets
Diyala	27 Incidents 12 Killed 5 ISF 7 Civilians 20 Wounded 5 ISF 6 Hashd 9 Civilians 15 Shootings 8 IEDs 1 Suicide Bomber 1 Mortar 5 Suicide Bombers Killed
Kirkuk	18 Incidents 18 Killed 2 Hashd 7 ISF 9 Civilians 40 Wounded 4 ISF 6 Hashd 30 Civilians 5 Shootings 10 IEDs 2 Rockets
Ninewa	11/10 Incidents 24 Killed 1 Hashd 1 ISF 22 Civilians 22 Wounded 2 ISF 6 Hashd 14 Civilians 2 Shootings 5 IEDs 2 Rockets 2 Fields Burned 1 Car Bomb Dismantled
Salahaddin	10/9 Incidents 4 Killed 1 Civilian 1 ISF 2 Hashd 9 Wounded 2 Hashd 7 ISF 4 Shootings 5 IEDs 1 Mortar 1 Rocket

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