WORST YEAR YET: As this Airwars chart shows, likely deaths in Syria rose by 597% between February and March. They continued to remain staggeringly high, reaching new peaks in both June and August before beginning to decline. Following the liberation of Raqqah on October 20th, likely deaths fell by 96% to their lowest level since September 2016. Meanwhile, in Iraq the battle for Mosul saw the year begin with a spike of ldeaths in January. These reached peak levels in March as the West Mosul campaign intsensified. Likely deaths then dropped significantly, though this was deceptive, as Airwars saw a huge leap in 'contested' deaths in which it was increasinging challenging to determine who was responsible for the fatalities.
