Ahrar al Sham (AAS) has been a major player in the Syrian conflict since the group was formed in December 2011. Bringing together a number of Syrian Islamist groups to fight under a single structure, AAS’ primary stated objective was to bring an end to the Assad regime and see the establishment of a Sunni…
In early 2018, the YPG publicly requested the support of the Syrian regime to obstruct the Turkish expansion in northern Syria (Reuters, 2018). The call for support fuelled a longer-standing suspicion among analysts about the level of cooperation and collaboration between the Syrian regime and the YPG. Similarly, the Syrian opposition has long argued that…
Going by the name of the National Resistance Forces (NRF), a number of fighters loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have recently made substantive territorial gains against their former allies in western Yemen. Following the collapse of the Houthi-Saleh alliance that led to the battle of Sana’a in December 2017 (ACLED, 16 February 2018),…
The number of demonstrations in Iran has remained high this month as the wave of unrest that began in late December 2017 continues (to read more about this, see Demonstrations Across Iran). Over the past months, many of the demonstrations reported in Iran have been related to unemployment, wage delays, and the collapse of financial…
Despite the sense of widespread disorder conveyed by the dominant narrative on Yemen, the frontlines of the war pitting forces of the (former) Houthi-Saleh alliance against those loyal to the internationally-recognised government have largely remained static over the past year. For most of 2017, conflict actors of the Yemeni civil war focused on developing governance…
Beginning on 28 December 2017, a wave of demonstrations swept across Iran. Protests started in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s second most populous city and one of its most important religious centers, and rapidly spread into other major towns including Nishabur, Kashmar, Birjand, Noshahr, and Yazd. The events were initially motivated by widespread frustration with…
Hadramawt and Al Mahrah governorates make up the eastern region of Yemen, which has witnessed less conflict than the rest of the country. Al Mahrah has remained largely peaceful throughout the civil war; ACLED recorded only two violent occurrences in the governorate in early 2018: the assassination of an Omani citizen, and clashes involving Saudi…
ACLED tracks a wide variety of non-governmental conflict actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Over the past year, the most dynamic among these conflict actors have seen significant fluctuations in their respective levels of activity. These include the APCLS, ADF-NALU, FDLR, various FRPI factions, the LRA, various Mayi Mayi militia factions, and various NDC…
Introduction The powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April 2015 was followed by a series of strong aftershocks that changed the political landscape drastically – at least in the short term. Nine years of protracted political power struggles and negotiations over an overdue constitution were replaced by national and international disaster relief…
South and Southeast Asian countries have witnessed 561 violent events targeting civilians in 2015 so far. Over half of these events, 293, cannot be verifiably linked to any specific group. Yet the remaining 268 events can be traced to specific rebel groups and political militias. In Bangladesh, the political rivalry between the Bangladesh National Party…