BAGHDAD – As Iraq struggles to stem spiraling violence in the latest chapter of its years-long war against militants, authorities are waging a public relations battle over the number of people killed.



The government has downplayed the number of deaths from attacks in its official statements, even as violence in Iraq has reached levels not seen since 2008. It has also challenged media reports on unrest, saying some were as dangerous as attacks themselves.



While the UN says that more than 4,000 people have been killed in Iraq violence so far in 2013, an AFP review of more than 1,700 interior and defense ministry statements issued this year and archived on their websites found only a tiny fraction of that figure was publicly acknowledged.



The interior ministry statements contained references to the deaths of about 120 civilians and security forces in attacks, while the defense ministry mentioned about 30 Iraqi security forces and civilians having died.



The Iraqi government is clearly concerned about public perceptions of violence.



The interior ministry issued a statement this month slamming what it termed “fabricated news and untrue statistics” in reports on attacks.



“The malicious media attacks launched by some media organizations ... are not less dangerous than these attacks themselves,” the ministry said.



“The language of numbers is important for Al-Qaeda, and the process of some media organizations adopting this” is “encouraging Al-Qaeda to move forward in targeting the Iraqi citizen,” interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said in an interview with AFP. A senior army officer said that the Iraqi government’s concern over death tolls has led it to release incomplete numbers.



“The statistics that are mentioned in defense and interior ministry statements do not include the final numbers of victims of terrorist attacks,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.



Instead, “there are orders from the senior leadership to highlight the activities of security forces and their killing of terrorists.”



Government spokesman Ali Mussawi denied that allegation, saying that “we never gave any orders to reduce the statistics.”



But the Iraqi government privately compiles much more comprehensive figures than those mentioned in its public statements.



According to those figures, which are obtained by AFP and other media organizations but not officially released, violence in Iraq has killed 2,472 civilians and security forces members so far this year.



Maan said the interior ministry’s online statements were not exhaustive and rather covered major incidents, but they made no mention of some of the worst days of violence of the year.



Not all of the interior ministry’s statements give lower death tolls than other sources, and some referred to attacks apparently not mentioned elsewhere. But in other cases, the difference in tolls is stark. – AFP