Iraq 2015: A Catastrophic Normal

An overview of the year’s violence

First published  1 Jan 2016 

1. 2015 Summary and comparison to preceding years

16,115 civilians have been recorded killed in Iraq during 2015 (up to Dec 30). This may be compared to 4,622 in 2012, 9,851 in 2013 and 20,030 in 2014. These numbers do not include combatant deaths, except where reported killed in summary executions.

As in 2014, Islamic State (also variously known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) continues to be a major cause of death of civilians, along with the Iraqi military, US and Coalition air forces involved in the conflict.

As IBC has continuously documented since early 2003, and as we noted last year, the post-invasion period in Iraq has never been free of conflict-related violence and civilian casualties. However 2010-2012 saw a relative reduction in levels of violence, with annual civilian death tolls ranging from 4,167 to 4,622, and the monthly rate ranging from a low of 218 to a high of 531. (Those three years nonetheless saw more than 2,500 deadly bombing incidents, an average of two a day.)1

That relative stability ended in early-to-mid 2013. Taken together, the three years 2010, 2011 and 2012 claimed 12,942 civilian lives, whereas the past three years of 2013, 2014 and 2015 have left 45,996 dead.

Although 2015’s death toll is lower than 2014’s, it is far from reverting to the earlier relatively low levels of 2010-12, and belongs much more to the later, more catastrophic conditions which began in 2013. In fact, aside from the exceptionally high death tolls recorded in June and August of 2014, the level of deaths in 2015 were very similar to those in 2014.

More Iraqi civilians were killed in 2015 than in the three years 2010, 2011 and 2012 combined. Or to put it another way: If 2014 was the peak year since the dramatic increases from 2013 onwards, representing a more than fourfold increase on 2012, then 2015 remains the next worst, at a more than threefold increase.

Furthermore, IBC‘s original figure for 2014 as published a year ago was 17,049: the increase of about 3,000 since last year‘s report is partly due to newly emerging eyewitness accounts and discoveries of mass graves in areas where control has been retaken from Islamic State. Should there be similar discoveries in 2016, IBC’s figure for 2015 may also need to be revised upwards.

	2012	2013	2014	2015
January	531	357	1096	1449
February	356	360	971	1612
March	377	403	1028	1122
April	392	545	1036	1989
May	304	888	1098	1254
June	529	659	4081	1327
July	469	1145	1569	1580
August	422	1013	3332	1535
September	400	1306	1465	1181
October	290	1180	1729	1150
November	253	870	1425	949
December	299	1125	1200	967
2015 total	4,622	9,851	20,030	16,115

2. Geographic distribution in 2015

The greatest number of civilian deaths in 2015 were reported for the Iraqi governorates (provinces) of Ninewa, Anbar and Baghdad, followed by Salah al-Din and Diyala. These five provinces alone accounted for 90% of civilians killed in Iraq in 2015.

While Anbar had the highest number of deaths in the first half of the year (2,891) Ninewa saw the greatest amount of violence in the 2nd half (2,660 killed), reflecting a worsening situation in Mosul, in particular. These trends largely tracked the activities of the Islamic State in Ninewa, Anbar and Salah al-Din, including large numbers of executions, their repulsion from these areas, and killings by Coalition and Iraqi forces engaged in combat with them, including through air strikes and artillery.

Baghdad’s violence is not far behind Ninewa’s or Anbar’s, having remained at a consistently elevated level throughout the year. Diyala bears the tragic distinction of experiencing the year’s worst car bombing, which killed some 120 people on 17th July in Khan Bani Saad.

Month	Ninewa	Anbar	Baghdad	Salah al-Din	Diyala
January	286	309	266	321	198
February	161	743	290	205	123
March	167	203	300	136	111
April	301	768	334	404	98
May	175	480	287	82	166
June	339	388	258	47	110
July	345	507	314	135	182
August	736	112	249	131	106
September	482	91	276	104	42
October	313	165	313	100	100
November	366	38	303	56	50
December	418	126	236	24	29
2015 total	4,089	3,930	3,426	1,745	1,315

3. The major perpetrators and causes of civilian deaths

Of the 16,115 civilians recorded killed, many deaths were attributable to the actions of specific armed groups, but the perpetrators of many of the killings remain unknown. And even where known, some types of events can involve several parties to the conflict, either as opponents or as allies, making it difficult to know which was directly responsible.

Some airstrikes for example may have been carried out by Coalition forces or the Iraqi air force, or possibly both – this is not always obvious to observers on the ground. IBC’s airstrike civilian casualty data below contains a column listing the number of civilian deaths in cases where the deaths could have been caused by Coalition or Iraqi forces, or possibly both acting together.

In other so-called “cross-fire” cases where civilians are killed in battles, it can be difficult or impossible to determine which of two or more parties identified as involved in the hostilities was directly responsible for every death. In these cases our data should be read as indicating that a given party was involved in an incident causing civilian death: whether or not they, or their opponents in battle, caused the death or deaths is not known.

Around half of the year’s civilian deaths were by executions (the killing of captives), the majority of them by Islamic State. Another 1,246 were killed in executions by unknown forces.

Executions by all parties (including unknown perpetrators)

Month	Islamic State	Other perpetrators (includes bodies found with unknown perpetrators, in areas not under IS)	Executions by all perpetrators
January	500	219	719
February	885	108	993
March	430	108	538
April	1152	168	1320
May	630	142	772
June	439	105	544
July	380	80	460
August	768	57	825
September	563	63	626
October	546	59	605
November	323	85	408
December	485	52	537
2015 total	7,101	1,246	8,347

Civilian deaths in airstrikes 2

Month	Coalition forces	Coalition forces and/or Iraqi forces	Iraqi forces	Airstrikes by all perpetrators
January	42	12	2	56
February	82	13	5	100
March	23	0	0	23
April	95	0	16	111
May	29	19	12	60
June	130	55	48	233
July	108	21	69	198
August	63	14	41	118
September	86	59	33	178
October	33	3	4	40
November	64	0	15	79
December	90	0	9	99
2015 total	845	196	254	1,295

Civilian deaths involving Islamic State 3

Month	By execution	IS and/or Iraqi forces (including shelling, clashes, other explosives)	All involving Islamic State
January	500	40	645
February	885	33	994
March	430	74	548
April	1152	16	1254
May	630	54	898
June	439	134	669
July	380	210	790
August	768	30	947
September	563	13	618
October	546	6	586
November	323	0	367
December	485	2	502
2015 total	7,101	612	8,818

Civilian deaths involving Iraqi government forces

Month	Airstrikes	Airstrikes involving Coalition forces and/or Iraqi forces	Total in airstrikes	Iraqi forces and/or IS (including shelling, clashes, other explosives)	Total for all causes
January	2	12	14	120	134
February	5	13	18	46	64
March	0	0	0	88	88
April	16	0	16	58	74
May	12	19	31	327	358
June	48	55	103	129	232
July	69	21	90	210	300
August	41	14	55	30	85
September	33	59	92	13	105
October	4	3	7	6	13
November	15	0	15	15	30
December	9	0	9	0	9
2015 total	254	196	450	1,042	1,492

4. Combatants killed June 2014 through December 2015

Since the new phase of the conflict began in June 2014, clashes between Iraqi military and allied militias on the one part and insurgent groups such as ISIS on the other have continued to be common, including throughout 2015, causing thousands of deaths among these groups.

Daily reporting on combatant casualties has continued to be sketchy and sometimes questionable (see discussion in our 2014 report), however Iraqi and Kurdish officials have recently begun to release more thorough information on losses among their forces, reporting that over 4,000 Iraqi soldiers and allied militia have been killed. Over 1,500 Peshmerga and Kurdish security force members have also been killed fighting ISIS in the North, mainly in Ninewa province. Some 13,000 ISIS fighters have been killed since June 2014, according to the Defence Ministry.

5. Total deaths (civilian and combatant) for the entire period from March 2003

Total reported deaths for the entire period 2003-2015 passed 240,000 during 2015. Over 170,000 (roughly 71%) of these were civilian. The table below has been regularly updated since 2010, and provides a summary of cumulative totals including both civilian and combatant deaths. 4

Iraq Body Count March 2003-December 2015	170,509
Insurgents, Iraqi soldiers & other combatants killed 2010–2015	24340
Iraq War Logs new 'Civilian' and comparable 'Host Nation' remaining 2004-2009 - central estimate (9420), ‘Host Nation’ combatant 2004-2009 - central estimate (5575), ‘Enemy’ (minus IBC overlaps) 2004-2009 - central estimate (20499)	35494
Iraqi combatants killed March-May 2003 (4,895); Insurgents killed June-December 2003 (597); Insurgents killed May 2004 (652); Insurgents & Iraqi soldiers killed March 2009 (59)	6203
TOTAL IRAQI DEATHS	236,546
US & Coalition military killed 2003–2015	4815
US & Coalition foreign contractors killed 2003–2015	468
TOTAL DEATHS	241,829