After several years of fighting the international terrorist organization "Islamic State", the anti-terrorist coalitions headed by the Russian Federation and the USA managed to tip the scale in their favor in 2017. There is extensive research on how different countries counteract this most well-known of all modern international terrorist organizations. However, as Western criminologists note (Alex Braithwaite, Shane D. Johnson), there are very few empirical works that study the causes of decline and growth of terrorist activities as well as the emergence and disappearance of hot spots in Iraq itself during the American military campaign. On the whole, the overview of publications has revealed (Gary LaFree, Joshua D. Freilich) that out of over than 20 thousand articles on terrorism published between 1971 and 2004, only seven were devoted to empirical (criminological) research, while others dealt with the psychology of terrorism. The situation started to change in recent years and a large number of empirical (criminological and criminal law) studies of terrorism has been published, which is connected with the growing financial support of such research by national research foundations and state departments (for example, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense in the USA). Thus, about 100 books devoted to such studies have been annually published in the USA in the last decade. As for Russian criminal law policy, this article is one of the few devoted to countering terrorism in the motherland of "Islamic State" - in Iraq. The authors analyze Iraqi anti-terrorism legislation, in particular, Law. 13 of 2005, draw attention to an excessively wide definition of terrorism that it contains, conclude that its clause of analogy is incompatible with the principle of legality and argue that this normative act is one of the most drastic anti-terrorism laws in the world. The authors believe that an important direction in fighting terrorism is the decision of Iraqi authorities to establish a special tribunal for terrorist crimes, such as genocide against the Yazidis, and criminal prosecution of perpetrators who are outside Iraq, including those in Russian territory. They prove that the terrorist crimes against "infidels", qualified by many specialists and international organizations as crimes against peace and humanity, should mainly be the subject of proceedings in an independent court body of the international community.
