A total of 1,325 people were killed in terrorist attacks and armed conflict in Iraq during August, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
In a report released Tuesday, UNAMI said the number comprises 585 civilians and 740 members of the Iraqi security forces, including members of the military and police, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and allied militias.
A further 1,103 civilians and 708 ISF personnel were wounded over the same period, the report notes.
A majority of the civilian casualties occurred in and around Baghdad, where 318 were killed and 751 injured. Diyala province came in second, with 108 killed and 162 injured, and Nineveh province, where Islamic State-controlled Mosul is located, came in third with 69 killed and three injured.
In Iraq's western Anbar province, where the Iraqi military and allied militias have been locked in an offensive against IS militants since mid-July, 39 civilians were killed and 148 injured, the report states, adding, "Casualty figures obtained from the Anbar Health Directorate might not fully reflect the real number of casualties in those areas due to the increased volatility of the situation on the ground and the disruption of services."
Since November 2012, the deadliest month for Iraq's civilians has been June 2014, when IS fighters seized large swaths of western and northern Iraq after spilling over from Syria. The UN tallied 1,513 civilians killed during that period, and the number stayed above 1,100 during the next two months, respectively.
IS militants had been seizing Iraqi cities, such as Fallujah, in the Anbar province, as early as January 2014, when the UN documented 618 Iraqi civilian deaths.
Between Jan. 1, 2014, and the end of April 2015, 14,947 civilians were killed in Iraq, with 3,345 perishing between Dec. 11, 2014, and April 30, 2015, according to an earlier UN report.
Tuesday's report comes after at least 12 ISF personnel were reported killed in suicide bombings and clashes with IS forces in Baghdad and Anbar province on Aug. 30.
By Fred Lambert
