Examples of identicide can be observed in the destruction of the Bridge of Mostar and the National and University Library in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the willful damage of Islamic iconography and archaeological treasures such as Palmyra by ISIL in Syria.
According to Meharg, identicide is a deliberate act, normally performed as a tactic of armed conflict, but more specifically is a strategy of warfare that deliberately targets and destroys cultural elements of a people through a variety of means in order to contribute to eventual acculturation, removal and/or total destruction of a particular identity group, including its contested signs, symbols, behaviours [sic], values, heritages, places and performances.
Belligerents seek to systematically destroy identity elements, causing anomie and other behavioral and attitudinal reactions, which can result in the group moving away, or submitting to control.
[7] Identicide can take many forms, where the intense killing of a people in a short amount of time, as well as the physical destruction of its link with a place or region, are the more recognizable acts that fall within its scope.
However, longer term and more subtle acts, such as absorbing and integrating a culture within another through the transformation of religion, language, and social practices, or imposing/preventing demographic shifts within a community,[10] with a final outcome to deliberately eliminate the remnants of a specific people and their landscape, could also be viewed as forms of identicide.
Targets are often "symbolic landscapes" that, according to Sarah Jane Meharg, "create a particularity of place, [and] also act as narratives of collective memory that underpin the cohesion and identity of groups.