During the reporting period, ISIL executed and inspired multiple coordinated suicide attacks and bombings against non-combatants in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia directed at Muslim majority populations at the end of Ramadan, resulting in high civilian casualties. These incidents invoke terror, targeting innocuous places such as a cafe in Bangladesh, while also exposing the vulnerability of high security facilities like Atatürk International Airport and the United States Consulate building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Others were carried out in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad and at a Shia mosque in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. Though ISIL has lost significant territory, particularly Fallujah, these attacks demonstrate ISIL’s organizational sophistication and operational resilience. As Iraqi Security Forces, Popular Mobilization Units, and the US-backed Coalition forces turn from Fallujah and move north to expel ISIL from Mosul, if this reporting period is any indication, it is anticipated that more bombings and suicide attacks, particularly those which target Muslim civilians and places of worship, will follow.

Sectarian tensions in Iraq continue to escalate, particularly in Fallujah where Shia Popular Mobilization Units are alleged to have vandalized and damaged multiple mosques and looted homes and businesses following the expulsion of ISIL. Sunnis in recently liberated ISIL territories like Fallujah, though having been subjected to brutal draconian rule under ISIL, are often more fearful of Shia PMUs. The deteriorating political situation in the wake of the Baghdad bombing and the escalation of civilian targeting by ISIL hold the potential to cause further unrest throughout Iraq, particularly in territories recently liberated from ISIL.

In Syria, all belligerents involved in the conflict were again implicated in heritage damage during the reporting period, largely to places of worship. In particular, many mosques were damaged in the area northwest of Aleppo, where SARG forces are actively engaged in an intense aerial bombardment campaign. In other developments, DigitalGlobe satellite imagery reveals that multiple buildings and vehicles have been removed from the Russian military base located in the Northern Necropolis of Palmyra.

Finally, ISIL released a new propaganda video shot in Palmyra while the ancient site was under its control between May 2015 and late March 2016. The video shows the iconoclastic vandalism of Palmyrene statuary and the destruction of mummies from the Palmyra Archaeological Museum.