Territory of the Islamic State

The Islamic State (IS) had its core in Iraq and Syria from 2013 to 2017 and 2019 respectively, where the proto-state controlled significant swathes of urban, rural, and desert territory, mainly in the Mesopotamian region. Today the group controls scattered pockets of land in the area, as well as other minor strongholds or underground insurgent cells in other areas, notably Afghanistan, West Africa, the Sahara, Somalia, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of 2023, large swathes of Mali have fallen under IS control.
In early 2017, IS controlled approximately 45,377 square kilometers (17,520 square miles) of territory in Iraq and Syria and 7,323 km of territory elsewhere, for a total of 52,700 square kilometres (20,300 sq mi). This represents a substantial decline from the group's territorial peak in late 2014, when it controlled between 100,000 and 110,000 square kilometres (39,000 and 42,000 sq mi) of territory in total. IS territory has declined substantially in almost every country since 2014, a result of the group's unpopularity and the military action taken against it. By late March 2019, IS territory in Syria was reduced to only the besieged 4,000 km (1,550 sq mi) Syrian Desert pocket. The enclave was surrounded by Syrian government forces and its allies. The Syrian military conducted combing operations and airstrikes against the pocket, but with limited success. IS propaganda claims a peak territorial extent of 282,485 km.
The majority of the Islamic State's territory, population, revenue, and prestige came from the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria. In Afghanistan, IS mostly controls territory near the Pakistan border and has lost 87% of its territory since spring 2015. In Lebanon, IS also controlled some areas on its border at the height of the Syrian war. In Libya, the group operates mostly as a moving insurgent force, occupying places before abandoning them again. In Egypt, the group controls 910 km of land centered on the small city of Sheikh Zuweid, which represents less than 1% of Egypt's territory. In Nigeria, Boko Haram (at the time an IS affiliate) controlled 6,041 km of territory at its maximum extent in 2014, though most of this area was lost amid military reversals and a split within Boko Haram between pro- and anti-IS factions. By late 2019, however, IS's African forces had once again seized large areas in Nigeria; as of 2021, IS's African forces still run their own administrations in territories they control. As of 2022, most of IS's territory is confined to northeastern Nigeria and northern Mozambique, alongside large swathes of eastern Mali.
The fifth edition of the Islamic State's Dabiq magazine explained the group's process for establishing new provinces. Jihadist groups in a given area must consolidate into a unified body and publicly declare their allegiance to the caliph. The group must nominate a Wāli (Governor), a Shura Council (religious leadership), and formulate a military strategy to consolidate territorial control and implement Sharia law. Once formally accepted, IS considers the group to be one of its provinces and gives it support. Dabiq has acknowledged support in regions including East Turkestan, Indonesia and the Philippines, and claimed that IS would eventually establish wilayat in these areas after forming direct relationships with its supporters there.
IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani said "the legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas." IS thus rejects the political divisions established by Western powers during World War I in the Sykes–Picot Agreement as it absorbs territory in Syria and Iraq. The Long War Journal writes that the logical implication is that the group will consider preexisting militant groups like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) illegitimate if they do not nullify themselves and submit to IS's authority.
While branches in Libya and Egypt have been very active and attempted to exercise territorial control, branches in other countries like Algeria and Saudi Arabia have been less active and do not seem to have a strong presence.
Since 2022, there have been no further provinces officially announced by IS. This is despite the group receiving public pledges of allegiance from militants in countries like Somalia, Bangladesh and the Philippines, and subsequently releasing statements and videos from those regions through its official media channels. Analyst Charlie Winter speculates that this is due to the lackluster performance of many of IS's existing provinces, and that IS's leadership seems to be identifying new affiliates as simply "soldiers of the caliphate."
Loss of "caliphate" territory led IS to conduct more terrorist attacks abroad.
The Islamic State primarily claimed territory in Syria and Iraq, subdividing each country into multiple wilayah (provinces), largely based on preexisting governance boundaries. The first territorial claims by the group outside of Syria and Iraq were announced by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on 13 November 2014, when he announced new wilayats, or provinces, in Libya (Wilayah Barqah, Wilayah Tarabulus, and Wilayah Fazan), Algeria (Wilayah al-Jazair), Sinai, Egypt (Wilayah Sinai), Yemen (Wilayah al-Yaman), and Saudi Arabia (Wilayah al-Haramayn). In 2015, new provinces were also announced in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border (Wilayah Khurasan), Northern Nigeria (Wilayah Gharb Ifriqiyyah), the North Caucasus (Wilayah al-Qawqaz), and the Sahel (Sahil).
In November 2014, the Islamic State released a video in which two of its militants stated that IS will make a province for Kurdistan if they capture it.
When the Iraq-based insurgent group Mujahideen Shura Council announced it was establishing an Islamic State of Iraq in October 2006, it claimed authority over seven Iraqi provinces: Baghdad, Al Anbar, Diyala, Kirkuk, Saladin, Nineveh, and parts of Babil.
When the group changed its name to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and expanded into Syria in April 2013, it claimed nine Syrian provinces, covering most of the country and lying largely along existing provincial boundaries: Al Barakah (al-Hasakah Governorate), Al Khayr (Deir ez-Zor Governorate), Raqqa, Homs, Halab, Idlib, Hamah, Damascus, and Latakia. It later subdivided the territory under its control to create the new provinces of al-Furat, Fallujah, Dijlah, and al-Jazirah. On 9 December 2017 Iraqi military forces announced the war against IS in Iraq had been won and that they no longer controlled territory in Iraq. In June 2017 IS affiliate Khalid ibn al-Walid Army started referring to themselves as "Wilayat Hawran", one month later IS media started referring to all its claims in Syria as "Wilayat al-Sham".
Since mid-2018, IS has referred to its territory in the Levant simply as Wilayat al-Sham and has done the same with Iraq calling it Wilayat al-Iraq, but still continues to acknowledge and use references to specific regions in those territories, this has also been done with its claims in Yemen and Libya.
As of 2022, the group seems to have increased its efforts in Syria compared to Iraq, and has been reduced to several pockets in the Syrian desert, with local tribesmen acting as informants for the U.S. and other coalition forces. Despite this, the group managed to orchestrate a major prison break in January 2022.
On 29 January 2015, Hafiz Saeed Khan, Abdul Rauf and other militants in the region swore an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Khan was subsequently named as the Wāli (Governor) of a new branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan called Khurasan Province, named after the historical Khorasan region.
IS attempted to establish themselves in Southern Afghanistan, especially in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, but were resisted by Taliban forces. They were able to establish a foothold in parts of Nangarhar, and recruited disaffected members of the Taliban. In August 2015, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader, Usman Ghazi, swore allegiance to IS and announced that the group should be considered part of Wilayah Khorasan.
The group suffered reversals in 2016, losing control of some territory in the wake of attacks from US Forces, the Afghan Government and the Taliban. Hafiz Saeed Khan was reportedly killed in a US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan on 25 July 2016.
In 2019, the group announced a new Pakistan province (Wilayah Pakistan). Despite this, as of 2022, the Khorasan province continues to operate in the country, also operating against neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where some members have suggested that a Movarounnahr (or Transoxiana) province is established. In July 2022, a Tajik-language magazine called Al-Azaim Tajiki was endorsed by the group, named after Yusuf al-Tajiki, a propagandist for the group killed by the Taliban.
Since the Taliban's 2021 offensive, which ended with the takeover of Kabul and the end of the 20-year war in the country, IS-K have become a new focus for the group, with its funding and numbers increasing as a result of prison breaks of IS fighters during the offensive and subsequent recruiting. Efforts have also increased to recruit fighters from neighboring Uzbekistan.
IS divides Libya into three historical provinces, claiming authority over Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the desert south, and Tripolitania in the west, around the capital of Tripoli.
In 2014, a number of leading IS commanders arrived in the city of Derna, which had been a major source of fighters in the Syrian civil war and Iraqi insurgency. Over a number of months, they united many local militant factions under their leadership and declared war on anyone who opposed them, killing judges, civic leaders, local militants who rejected their authority, and other opponents. On 5 October 2014, the militants, who by then controlled part of the city, gathered to pledge allegiance to the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In February 2015, IS forces took over parts of the Libyan city of Sirte. In the following months, they used it as a base to capture neighbouring towns including Harawa, and Nofaliya. IS began governing Sirte and treating it as the capital of their territory.
As of March 2015, the group claimed control over the following oil fields in Libya:
IS suffered reversals from mid-2015 when they were expelled from much of Derna following clashes with rival militants, following months of intermittent fighting, IS eventually redeployed to other parts of Libya. Its emir Abu Nabil al-Anbari was killed in a U.S. air strike in November 2015. Libya's Interim Government launched a major offensive against IS territory around Sirte in May 2016, capturing the city by December 2016.
The group's current emir is Abu Bara al Sahrawi, who replaced Adnan Abu Walid al Sahrawi after his death in August 2021.
The Egyptian militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis swore allegiance to IS in November 2014. After al-Baghdadi's speech on 13 November, the group changed its name to Sinai Province on the Twitter feed claiming to represent the group. The group has carried out attacks in Sinai.
On 1 July 2015, Wilayat Sinai launched a large-scale invasion on the Egyptian city of Sheikh Zuweid with more than 300 IS fighters and attacked more than 15 army and police positions using mortars, RPG's, light and heavy weapons in an attempt to capture the city.
On 29 February 2017, the group announced a new "Misr" province in Egypt in a propaganda video against Coptic Christians.
In 2020, IS in Egypt occupied villages in Bir al-Abd town in North Sinai.
As of 2022, the group continues to attack local infrastructure, but has diminished due to persistent counterterrorism efforts by the Egyptian government and armed forces, who operate with the assistance of local tribesmen.
Al-Baghdadi announced a Wilayah in Saudi Arabia in November 2014, calling for the overthrow of the Saudi Royal Family and criticizing the Kingdom's participation in the US-led coalition against IS. The group has carried out attacks in the country under the names of Najd Province and Hejaz Province.
IS established a Yemeni Wilayah in November 2014. The branch's first attack occurred in March 2015, when it carried out suicide bombings on two Shia Mosques in the Yemeni capital. At least eight IS Wilayat, named after existing provincial boundaries in Yemen, have claimed responsibility for attacks, including 'Adan Abyan Province, Al-Bayda Province, Hadramawt Province, Shabwah Province and Sana'a Province. Following the outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War in 2015, IS struggled to establish much of a presence in the country in the face of competition from the larger and more established Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militant group. Many of IS's regional cells in Yemen have not been visibly active since their establishment and the group has not been able to seize control of territory the way they have done in Iraq and Syria. The group has also experienced leadership turmoil and defections from its rank and file.
As of 2022, the group serves a key financial intermediary between Somalia and Khorasan provinces.
Members of a militant group named Jund al-Khilafah swore allegiance to IS in September 2014. IS in Algeria gained notoriety when it beheaded French tourist Hervé Gourdel in September 2014. On 13 November 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that the group had changed its name to "Wilayah al-Jazair" in accordance to the structure of the rest of groups aligned with IS. Algerian security forces killed the group's leader, Khalid Abu-Sulayman, in December 2014, and five of its six commanders in a May 2015 raid. Since then, the group has not claimed any significant attacks and has largely been silent.
On 7 March 2015, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to IS via an audio message posted on the organisation's Twitter account. Abu Mohammad al-Adnani welcomed the pledge of allegiance, and described it as an expansion of the group's caliphate to West Africa. IS publications from late March 2015 began referring to members of Boko Haram as part of Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyyah (Islamic State's West Africa Province). Boko Haram suffered significant reversals in the year following the pledge of allegiance, with an offensive by the Nigerian military, assisted by neighboring powers, driving them from much of the territory they had seized in North East Nigeria. Boko Haram suffered a split in 2016, with IS appointing 'Abu Musab al-Barnawi' as the group's new leader, due to disagreements with Abubakar Shekau's leadership. This was rejected by Shekau and his supporters, who continued to operate independently.
On 24 January 2022, the small town of Gudumbali was captured and declared as the province's capital. However, it was recaptured by Nigerian troops on 26 January.
In the summer of 2022, ISWAP made several territorial gains in Nigeria.
As of September 2022, the group continues to maintain its stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, and has again integrated or eclipsed its former competitor Boko Haram, as several fighters have rejoined the group. The group also orchestrated a prison break in July, near Abuja.
In October 2022, the town of Ansongo was captured by IS's Sahel province.
IS militants in Syria issued a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014: "we will liberate Chechnya and the entire Caucasus, God willing. Your throne has already teetered, it is under threat and will fall when we come to you because Allah is truly on our side." In early 2015, commanders of the militant Caucasus Emirate group in Chechnya and Dagestan announced their defection and pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In a June 2015 audio statement posted online, IS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani accepted the pledges of allegiance and appointed Abu Muhammad al-Qadari (Rustam Asildarov) as Governor of a new Caucasus Province. He called on other militants in the region to join with and follow al-Qadari. The group has carried out occasional, low-level attacks since then. Russian security services killed Rustam Asildarov in December 2016.
In February 2014, the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem declared its support for IS. On 2 April 2015, elements of this group, along with members of the Army of Islam and the Gaza faction of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, formed the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, also known as Islamic State in Gaza, as it predominantly operates in the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic State in Somalia (ISS) has been active since 2015, and though it remains a small militia of around 300 fighters, it has been considered possible by experts that ISS controls a number of villages in Puntland's hinterland. Furthermore, the group managed to capture and hold the town of Qandala for over a month in late 2016. At first, ISS did not receive official recognition by the Islamic State, however, this was subsequently granted by December 2017.
As of 2022, the group serves as an intermediary for IS provinces in Africa and the leadership based in Syria and Iraq. It also finances ISKP via Yemen.
The Islamic State – Sahel Province was formed on 15 May 2015 as the result of a split within the militant group Al-Mourabitoun. The rift was a reaction to the adherence of one of its leaders, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, to the Islamic State. From March 2019 to 2022, IS-GS was formally part of the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP); when it was also called "ISWAP-Greater Sahara". In March 2022, IS declared the province autonomous, separating it from its West Africa Province and naming it Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP) the group would go on to takeover large swathes of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Between 2022 and 2023, the group saw major gains in the Mali War, occupying large swarths of territory in southeastern Mali. Tidermène was captured by the group on 12 April 2023.
Abu Sayyaf is IS's most powerful affiliate in the Philippines; another IS-affiliated group is the Maute group. Both groups worked together with other IS affiliates to seize parts of Marawi City on 23 May 2017, starting the Battle of Marawi.
On 16 October, IS's Emir of Southeast Asia Isnilon Hapilon, along with the Maute group's remaining leader Omar Maute was killed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Previously, the Maute group's co-leader and Omar's brother Abdullah Maute, as well as their other five male siblings, had been neutralized by the ongoing counter-offensives. Two days after the leaders' death, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said Malaysian terrorist and senior commander Mahmud Ahmad is also presumed killed in another operation.
The Battle of Marawi was declared over by 23 October by the government, at which point all participating militants have been successfully neutralized, effectively blocking IS's Asian expansion. The government wiped out the Maute group after the battle.
In December 2017, remnants of the Maute group started recruiting new members to form a new group called "Turaifie Group" whose leader, Abu Turaifie, claimed himself to be a successor of former leader Abu Sayyaf Isnilon Hapilon.
As of 2022, only pockets in Indonesia and the Philippines remain, and major attacks have decreased as a result of successful counterterrorism efforts by the governments of both states.
During 2023, IS witnessed a major resurgence in the Philippines (especially from August), with the group claiming more attacks in the country than during the previous 2 years combined, including several significant attacks such as the Mindanao State University bombing in Marawi.
On 22 March 2024, the Philippines announced that Abu Sayyaf had been "fully dismantled", bringing an end to the decades-long jihadist insurgency.
According to the Islamic State Al-Naba newspaper, the group continued to conduct attacks on the Philippine Government and Army and the Moro militias until 11 April, which is yet to be confirmed by official Philippine Government sources.
In October 2017, a video emerged on pro-IS channels that showed a small number of militants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who declared to be part of the "City of Monotheism and Monotheists" (MTM) group. The leader of the group went on to say that "this is Dar al-Islam of the Islamic State in Central Africa" and called upon other like-minded individuals to travel to MTM territory in order to join the war against the government. The Long War Journal noted that though this pro-IS group in Congo appeared to be very small, its emergence had gained a notable amount of attention from IS sympathizers. On 24 July 2019, a video was released referring to IS's presence in the country as the Central African Wilayat showing fighters pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As of 2022, the group has doubled its territory and increased its numbers as a result of orchestrated prison breaks, with 2,000 prisoners freed since 2020.
After taking control of the Mozambican town of Mocímboa da Praia during an offensive in August 2020, local IS insurgents declared it the capital of their province. The militants consequently expanded further by capturing several islands in the Indian Ocean, with Vamizi Island being the most prominent.
In May 2022, the province was separated from Central Africa Province and became known as the Mozambique Province (ISM).
The Islamic State operated in India and the Kashmir region through its Islamic State Jammu & Kashmir (ISJK) branch, which had begun in February 2016. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province declared Wilayah [Wilayat] al-Hind (India Province) for IS on 11 May 2019 after clashes in Jammu and Kashmir in which ISJK leader Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi was killed.
Shafi Armar, a former member of the Indian Mujahideen, was formerly the chief of operations for the IS in India. He and his brother Sultan Armar founded the Indian IS affiliates Ansar-ut Tawhid fi Bilad al-Hind (transl. Supporters of Monotheism in the Land of India) and Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind (transl. Caliph's Army of India). Both he and his brother were killed in action during Syrian Civil War in 2015, which was only confirmed in 2019 because his online account was controlled by other militants in the group which added to the confusion. Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind has published the pro-IS propaganda magazine Sawt al-Hind (transl. Voice of India) since February 2020.
On 20 March 2024, the special forces arrested the IS India chief, Haris Farooqi and one of his associates while they were trying to cross to India from neighbouring Bangladesh. Police explained that the suspects had planned many sabotage activities and IED attacks inside India.
Islamic State – Bengal Province (Wilayat al-Bengal) is the province of IS in Bangladesh, it operates through the group Islamic State Bangladesh (ISB) and has claimed attacks in the country since October 2015. Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, an offshoot of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, also operates as its branch.
The first emir of Wilayat al-Bengal, Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, is believed to be Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki (born as Sajit Chandra Debnath, 1982) a Bangladeshi Japanese economist who went to Syria in 2015 and joined IS. A Hindu convert to Islam, he reportedly lead the 2016 Dhaka attack. He was detained in Iraq in 2019 and Abu Muhammed al-Bengali was announced as the new emir of the province.
On 2 July 2019, as part of a series of videos showing supporters and fighters of IS around the world renewing their pledge of allegiance to IS, a video was published from Azerbaijan featuring three fighters armed with Kalashnikov style rifles pledging their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The video was formally released by IS.
4 months later, after al-Baghdadi's death on 27 October 2019, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi received pledges of allegiance (bayah) from various provinces and regions, with photos of fighters from Azerbaijan pledging allegiance to him, on 29 November.
On 19 September, 2024, the Islamic State claimed its first-ever attack in Azerbaijan, via its weekly Al-Naba newsletter, claiming to have killed 7 Azeri security personnel and wounded 1 in a clash in Qusar district, northern Azerbaijan, five days prior.
Wilayat Turkiya was formally declared in July 2019 when a video was published by IS featuring Turkish jihadists giving their bay'ah to the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Reference was also made to the Wilayat prior to its formal introduction, in April 2019 in a video featuring the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in his second ever video appearance, and first appearance in five years, he was seen holding dossiers from various Wilayats the group claims one of which was labeled as Wilayat Turkey, which was the first known such usage as a reference to the Turkish Wilayat.
The Islamic State's main base of operations was in their territory of Ar-Raqqah in Syria, until 2017, where it was recaptured by the Syrian Democratic Forces. From there, orders were given to affiliate groups, called wilayat, spread across the Levant, Asia and Africa. Few of these wilayat have declared their capital cities, with the exception of al-Sham with Ar-Raqqah, al-Iraq with Mosul, and Central Africa with Mocímboa da Praia. It also had claims on the entirety of the Muslim world, including Central Asia, the former Ottoman Balkans, South East Asia, and the northern part of Africa. Other times, however, it expressed also a desire for world domination, with labels on certain areas of the old world as well as the new world.
In addition to its territorial administration, the group also established dāwāwīn (ministries) for the political administration of the quasi-state under al-Baghdadi's administration, modelled after Abu Ayyub al-Masri's infrastructure for the Islamic State of Iraq.
Islamic State had created various regional offices during the period (2017–2019) to organize & direct its human and other resources & reviving its external operational capability.
The “most vigorous and best-established” of IS's offices set up at the centre to oversee the wilayats are:
Al-Siddiq office in Afghanistan, which “covers South Asia and, according to some UN Member States, Central Asia”;
Al-Karrar office in Somalia, which also covers Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); and
Al-Furqan office in the Lake Chad basin, where the borders of Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria converge. The Furqan office covers these states in North Africa and the broader western Sahel, overseeing ISGS/ISSP.
IS's other “three regional offices are low-functioning or moribund”, says the Monitoring Team, and these are:
Al-Anfal office in Libya, which covered “parts of northern Africa and the Sahel”;
The Umm al-Qura office “based in Yemen and … responsible for the Arabian Peninsula”; and
The Zu al-Nurayn office in the Sinai Peninsula “responsible for Egypt and the Sudan”.
The territories in Iraq and Syria, which was occupied by the Islamic State and claimed as part of its self-dubbed "Caliphate" saw the creation of one of the most criminally active, totalitarian corrupt and violent regimes in modern times, and it ruled that territory until its defeat in 2019. IS murdered tens of thousands of civilians, kidnapped several thousand people, and forced hundreds of thousands of others to flee. It systematically committed torture, mass rapes, forced marriages, extreme acts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide, robbery, extortion, smuggling, slavery, kidnappings, and the use of child soldiers; in its implementation of strict interpretations of Sharia law which were based on ancient eighth-century methods, they carried out public "punishments" such as beheadings, crucifixions, beatings, mutilation and dismemberment, the stoning of both children and adults, and the live burning of people. IS members committed rape against tens of thousands of girls and women (mainly members of non-Sunni minority groups and families).
On 29 May, IS raided a village in Syria and at least 15 civilians were killed, including, according to Human Rights Watch, at least six children. A hospital in the area confirmed that it had received 15 bodies on the same day. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that on 1 June, a 102-year-old man was killed along with his whole family in a village in Hama province. According to Reuters, 1,878 people were killed in Syria by IS during the last six months of 2014, most of them civilians.
During its occupation of Mosul, IS implemented a sharia school curriculum which banned the teaching of art, music, national history, literature and Christianity. Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has never been taught in Iraqi schools, that subject was also banned from the school curriculum. Patriotic songs were declared blasphemous, and orders were given to remove certain pictures from school textbooks. Iraqi parents largely boycotted schools in which the new curriculum was introduced.
After capturing cities in Iraq, IS issued guidelines on how to wear clothes and veils. IS warned women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or face severe punishment. A cleric told Reuters in Mosul that IS gunmen had ordered him to read out the warning in his mosque when worshippers gathered. IS ordered the faces of both male and female mannequins to be covered, in an order which also banned the use of naked mannequins. In Raqqa the group used its two battalions of female fighters in the city to enforce compliance by women with its strict laws on individual conduct.
IS released 16 notes labelled "Contract of the City", a set of rules aimed at civilians in Nineveh. One rule stipulated that women should stay at home and not go outside unless necessary. Another rule said that stealing would be punished by amputation. In addition to banning the sale and use of alcohol, IS banned the sale and use of cigarettes and hookah pipes. It also banned "music and songs in cars, at parties, in shops and in public, as well as photographs of people in shop windows".
According to The Economist, the group also adopted certain practices seen in Saudi Arabia, including the establishment of religious police to root out "vice" and enforce attendance at daily prayers, the widespread use of capital punishment, and the destruction of Christian churches and non-Sunni mosques or their conversion to other uses.
IS carried out executions on both men and women who were accused of various acts and found guilty of crimes against Islam such as sodomy, adultery, usage and possession of contraband, rape, blasphemy, witchcraft, renouncing Islam and murder. Before the accused were executed, their charges were read to them and the spectators. Executions take various forms, including stoning to death, crucifixions, beheadings, burning people alive, and throwing people from tall buildings. The Islamic State in Iraq frequently carried out mass executions in Mosul and Hawija.
The condition of human rights in the territory controlled by the Islamic State is considered to be among the worst in the world. In the areas they controlled the Islamic State would commit several genocides against local ethnic groups between 2014 and 2017. The Yazidi genocide was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking people who are indigenous to Kurdistan who practice Yazidism, a monotheistic Iranian ethnoreligion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. the Iraqi Turkmen genocide began when IS captured Iraqi Turkmen lands in 2014 and it continued until IS lost all of their land in Iraq. In 2017, IS's persecution of Iraqi Turkmen was officially recognized as a genocide by the Parliament of Iraq, and in 2018, the sexual slavery of Iraqi Turkmen girls and women was recognized by the United Nations.
The Islamic State would persecute Christians in its territory in ways which involves the systematic mass murder Persecution of Christian minorities climaxed following the Syrian civil war and later by its spillover but has since intensified further. Christians have been subjected to massacres, forced conversions, rape, sexual slavery, and the systematic destruction of their historical sites, churches and other places of worship.
The depopulation of Christians from the Middle East by the Islamic State as well as other organisations and governments has been formally recognised as an ongoing genocide by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom. Christians remain the most persecuted religious group in the Middle East, and Christians in Iraq are “close to extinction”. According to estimates by the US State Department, the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen from 1.2 million 2011 to 120,000 in 2024, and the number in Syria from 1.5 million to 300,000, falls driven by persecution by Islamic terrorists.
Shia Muslims were also persecuted, since 2014. Persecutions have taken place in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the world.
Shia Muslims have been killed and otherwise persecuted by IS. On 12 June 2014, the Islamic State killed 1,700 unarmed Shia Iraqi Army cadet recruits in the Camp Speicher massacre. IS has also targeted Shia prisoners. According to witnesses, after the militant group took the city of Mosul, they divided the Sunni prisoners from the Shia prisoners. Up to 670 Shia prisoners were then taken to another location and executed. Kurdish officials in Erbil reported on the incident of Sunni and Shia prisoners being separated and Shia prisoners being killed after the Mosul prison fell to IS.
In a special report released on 2 September 2014, Amnesty International described how IS had "systematically targeted non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, of individuals and forcing more than tens of thousands of Shias, Sunnis, along with other minorities to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014". The most targeted Shia groups in Nineveh Governorate were Shia Turkmens and Shabaks.
Since 2014, the Islamic State has destroyed cultural heritage on an unprecedented scale, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also in Libya. These attacks and demolitions targeted a variety of ancient and medieval artifacts, museums, libraries, and places of worship, among other sites of importance to human history. Between June 2014 and February 2015, the Islamic State's Salafi jihadists plundered and destroyed at least 28 historic religious buildings in Mosul alone, with the most notable event being the 2014 destruction of Mosul Museum artifacts. Many of the valuables that were looted during these demolitions were used to bolster the economy of the Islamic State.
Along with antique Mesopotamian sites of significance, the Islamic State inflicted particularly cataclysmic levels of damage upon Christian (Assyrian, Armenian) heritage. It also destroyed Islamic sites that it declared to be in contradiction of that which is permissible in the Islamic State ideology, thus culminating in the destruction of Shia Islamic sites and non-compliant Sunni Islamic sites.