The methodology for the data analysis on violent interactions involving armed non-state actors in the Middle East in 2023 and 2024.
The data of events involving armed non-state actors are derived from the Armed Conflict Location and Events Database (ACLED). ACLED is an initiative for the collection, analysis and mapping of crisis-related data. It collects information on the dates, actors, locations, casualties and types of all the events of political violence and demonstrations, as well as proetests and other sellected nonviolent political developments from around the world. We used ACLED’s database to investigate the involvement of non-state armed actors in violent events in the Middle East, as part of the insert “The Armories of the Middle East”.
Data were collected on January 14, 2025, and cover the period between January 1, 2023, and January 1, 2025. For the analysis, the war zones of the Middle East were selected – those that, in this project, we considered to be in or involved in some kind of crisis or armed conflict, as these emerged from the research: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Turkey and the Palestinian territories.
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The conflicts and actors we analysed
By studying ACLED’s Codebook, we focused our research on the violent events, and more specifically on those which fit the categories Battles or Protests -and, in particular, are identified in the database as «Excessive force against protesters», «Protest with intervention», «Explosions/Remote violence», «Violence against civilians». It is possible that these categories include both armed and non-armed violent events. As there is no way to make this distinction, the analysis is concerned with the totality of violent events as described by the source.
As mentioned in ACLED’s methodology, who started every event is not clearly recorded. For that reason, we decided to analyse the “involvement”, thus the participation of the non-state armed actors in the conflicts.
ACLED records organised groups that are involved in the events, only if they are coherent organizations acting in more than one event, and distinguishes the actors in each event as “Actor 1” and “Actor 2” (as the conflict between the two is recorded each time).
We checked «Actor 1» and «Actor 2» for the data analysis, choosing only the events which include non-state actors with potentially an active role in the crises we have been examining: Based on previous research, the armed groups of interest were Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Ahrar al-Sham (AAS), Islamic State (IS), Amal Movement, Fatah Movement, Southern Transitional Council (STC), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Syrian National Army (SNA), Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, Elite Forces, Kataib Hezbollah, Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Military Operations Command, Security Belt Forces, Peshmerga, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Populist Resistance Committee (PRC).
It is important to note that we tried to normalize the names of the groups, as each may include sub-groups, brigades with different names or even be registered as a state force, as, for example, in the case of the Houthis.
Data visualisations
Due to the large number of armed non-state actors, in order to visualise the data, and to geographically map the conflicts under study, groupings had to be made based on the relationships of the groups as they emerged from the reporting.
In particular, the armed groups under analysis were grouped as follows:
- Syrian rebels: includes the HTS, AAS, Military Operations Command, Southern Operations Room
- Kurdish groups: includes the PKK, SDF, Peshmerga, PJAK, KDP
- Hamas & Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
- Others: includes other groups, which are alleged to have been involved in a very small percentage of attacks
The map of involvement in violent incidents by non-state actors was created using the open-source software QGIS, with the size of each circle on the map representing the number of violent events, categorized by non-state actor, that are attributed to the same geographic location according to the data source. It is estimated that approximately 7% of the total 31,461 events may overlap with others and are not visible on the map due to high concentrations of incidents in certain areas. This occurs because ACLED does not record the exact locations of incidents with geographic coordinates but instead uses the coordinates of a central point. Additionally, it provides supplementary information about these locations in text.
In 4% of the incidents, it is estimated that two of the studied groups were involved. In the absence of data indicating a significant role for a specific group, these cases have been grouped together and are represented in black as intergroup conflicts.
Bar charts, created using Illustrator and Flourish, depict which armed groups have specifically clashed with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Islamic State, and the Houthis.
