The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel to a broad northern and border band of Iraq, a position it updated on 22 July that remains current today. The all-travel exclusions run across the parts of Anbar west of Ramadi, Diyala outside Baqubah City, Kirkuk, Ninawa and Salah al-Din provinces, Jurf al-Sakr in Babil, Sadr City in Baghdad, and the five-kilometre strips along the borders with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Most of the south, the rest of Baghdad, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq carry advice against all but essential travel.
What keeps the northern picture live is regional escalation. In the FCDO's own words, since 8 July there have been strikes and retaliatory attacks by Iran in a number of locations across the region, Iraq included and the Kurdistan Region among them, against US military and civilian infrastructure. That is why the Kurdistan Region, often treated as the country's calmer half, remains on the all but essential line.
Two standing threats shape any movement plan. The FCDO assesses that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Iraq, and that there is a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country. Layered on top this month is the Arba'een pilgrimage, which runs across August and September and draws millions of pilgrims toward Karbala; crowd density, road closures and opportunistic theft all rise around it.
For a protective team the read is to treat the northern and border provinces as exclusions, to price the Kurdistan Region as elevated after the July strikes, to keep kidnap for ransom at the front of the threat model, and to route around the pilgrimage corridors and their peak dates.
