"The Soldiers' Harvest"- A Year of Islamic State Operations

Translation and Analysis

The latest issue of the Islamic State’s newsletter al-Naba’ features an infographic detailing an Islamic calendar year of military operations around the world for the year 1445 AH, since the Islamic new year took place relatively recently and it is now 1446 AH. Of course, there should be a general caveat that this infographic is a matter of self-reporting operations and may not include attacks that have not been formally claimed. Yet the following general observations are to be noted:

- In comparing Iraq and Syria, the Syria statistics are larger in terms of number of attacks carried out and number of enemies killed and wounded. This reflects a general truism that the group is notably more active in Syria than Iraq. While the Islamic State insurgencies in both countries are still low level in the larger picture, the group poses a more substantial security problem for its main enemies in Syria (primarily the Syrian government and its allies and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces) than in Iraq. Indeed, in Syria, it is likely that the infographic reflects an undercount of actual operations, owing to reasons of operational security in certain areas.