About the Data

While the U.S. military and its allies have tracked the casualties suffered by troops, few parties have been able to count the number of Iraqis injured or killed since the start of the war in 2003. While the U.S. made an effort to document civilian casualty data during its presence in the country, the administration “had consistent problems in collecting and defining data, changed methods and failed to estimate the margin of uncertainty,” according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C.-based think tank.

The Iraqi Government, too, attempted to quantify the number of slain citizens, but that set of data appears to undercount fatalities when compared to recent efforts by the United Nations. According to CSIS, the Iraqi government’s figures “failed to meet the most basic criteria to validate the integrity of their reporting.”

While total fatality counts can differ between sources such as the U.N. and IraqBodyCount.org, one of the most comprehensive databases of Iraqi deaths, each measure shows increased violence since the spring. IraqBodyCount.org has consistently identified incidents of violence dating back to March 2003 by using media reports, then verified each event using secondary sources.

Based on this data and media reports, HuffPost mapped major bombings that occurred in Iraq since April 24, 2013. For some events the exact number killed isn’t known and a range is provided. For other events it’s possible that some deaths went unreported. For these reasons, the map and charts show the minimum number of Iraqis killed and may undercount the total number of fatalities.