Armed groups on the rise: how battlefield dynamics are changing

New figures show there are both more
conflicts and more sides within each one

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The Geneva-based humanitarian organisation also found that the
number of non-international armed conflicts more than doubled from
the beginning of the century.

“Not only are there more conflicts, but there are more sides in
a conflict,” adds the ICRC in a report on its website.

About a third of clashes today are between two parties, nearly
half are between three to nine parties, and a quarter feature more
than ten parties in the warring territory.

By the end of the Libyan war in October 2011, 236 separate armed
groups were registered in the city of Misrata alone. In Syria, more
than 1,000 armed groups were counted in 2014.

“We’re seeing a high level of fragmentation,” says Clionadh
Raleigh, professor of political geography and conflict at the
University of Sussex.

“There has been a loosening of rules around violence generally,
a loosening of order,” Raleigh adds, in quotes reported
by The New York Times.

The continued rise of local factions, each structured in
different ways but frequently with less top-down control, causes a
problem for organisations such as the ICRC, who would normally
advise military commanders on international humanitarian law and
rely on them to enforce the rules.

“In this new labyrinth of non-state and state-sponsored
fighters, humanitarian workers have a harder time reaching wounded
soldiers and civilians and protecting their own staff members,”
says the US newspaper. “They are also finding it more challenging
to teach the non-state fighters about the Geneva Conventions and
how those laws of warfare should apply to them.”

In a newly released study, The Roots of Restraint in War, the ICRC says
that the new battlefield dynamic makes influencing warring groups
more difficult but not impossible.

The report recommends that humanitarian workers find culturally
specific ways of getting their message across. A case study in
South Sudan looked at the impact of speaking to local prophets who
hold sway within the community, or using local customs as analogies
for humanitarian law.