ConflictBarometer_2016

MIDDLE EAST AND MAGHREB
JORDAN (OPPOSITION)
Intensity: 2 | Change: | Start: 2011
LEBANON (SUNNI MILITANT GROUPS)
Intensity: 3 | Change: | Start: 2014
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
MBG vs. MB (Zamzam) vs. MBS vs. opposition
groups vs. government
system/ideology, national power
The conflict between oppositions groups, mainly the Muslim
Brotherhood Group (MBG), its breakaway factions MB (Zamzam)
and Muslim Brotherhood Society (MBS), and the Jordanian
government over national power and the orientation of
the political system continued as a non-violent crisis.
The fractionalization and polarization within the opposition,
especially within the movements previously associated with
the MB, further increased. For instance on October 31, the ''Elders
Group”, former leaders of the Islamic Action Front (IAF),
and the political arm of the MBG, announced the foundation
of the ''Partnership and Rescue Party”. The different groups
disagreed on the status of religion as well as on the prioritization
either of Palestinian or Jordanian issues. In March last
year, the authorities had recognized the MBS with their more
secularist and moderate orientation as the sole legal representative
of the MB in Jordan.
On March 29, the governor of the capital Amman informed
the MBG that the government would ban the internal elections
of the group's advisory board as well as a successor
to leader Hammam Saeed. On April 13, police and security
forces searched and evacuated the headquarters of the MBG
in Amman. Amman's governor ordered to seal the entrance
with wax due to the MB's illegal status and being unlicensed
by law, since the MBS had been the only MB representation
recognized by Jordan authorities. More closures of MBG quarters
followed the same day in Madaba, Mafraq, Keraq, and
Ramtha, Irbid Governorate. Unknown attackers committed an
arson attack on the MB's main office in al-Mafraq, Mafraq Governorate,
on the evening of June 26, without causing major
damage.
After having boycotted the last two legislative elections due
to the electoral system, the IAF participated in the elections
on September 20 with the ''National Coalition for Reform”
alliance. The elections were the first to take place under
a newly introduced electoral system with proportional elements
aimed at a higher degree of representation, and were
internationally regarded as fair and transparent. While the alliance
won 16 and the MB (Zamzam) won three seats, the MBS
did not obtain a seat. On the night after preliminary electoral
results had been published, protests erupted throughout several
regions of the country. In the southern city of Ma'an,
Ma'an Governorate, residents blocked roads, burned tires and
threw bricks. In Madaba, Madaba Governorate, special forces
used tear gas to disperse crowds burning tires in front of the
local electoral commission headquarters. anm
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
Jabhat al-Nusra / Jabhat Fatah al-
Sham, Sunni militant groups vs.
Hezbollah, government
secession, system/ideology, subnational
predominance
The conflict over ideology and subnational predominance between
Sunni militant groups, on the one hand, and the government
and Shiite militia Hezbollah, on the other, decreased
to a violent crisis.
On July 28, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, leader of the main militant
group Jabhat al-Nusra, declared the group's split from
al-Qaeda and renamed it Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
As in 2015, the conflict was affected by the Syrian civil war
and the transnational war against the so-called Islamic State
[→ Syria (opposition); Syria, Iraq et. al (IS)]. The clashes in
Lebanon were mainly situated in and around the cities Arsal,
Baalbek, and Ras Baalbek, Beqaa Governorate, and in Tripoli
and Akkar districts, North Governorate. Furthermore, violence
took place in the border region to Syria and in Syria's Rif Dimashq
Governorate.
Throughout the year, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) targeted
suspected members of Sunni militant groups, as Jabhat
al-Nusra/Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, by conducting raids and
arrests as well as enhancing border security measures. On
March 23, LAF killed a soldier who had earlier defected to Jabhat
al-Nusra in Dankeh village, Akkar District, in a shootout .
On June 5, LAF raided houses in the Wadi Humayid Refugee
Camp in Arsal, arresting dozens of alleged Syrian Jabhat al-
Nusra militants. Eleven days later, LAF attacked Jabhat al-
Nusra positions near the Jaroud-Rankous border crossing in
the Arsal region, killing several militants. On August 2, LAF targeted
Fatah al-Sham positions in the town of Dahr al-Safa, Beqaa
Governorate. During the attack, LAF used Multiple Rocket
Launcher Systems (MRLS), killed at least six militants and destroyed
two armored vehicles. Three days later, LAF conducted
raids against suspected militant hideouts inside Syrian
refugee camps in and around al-Qaa, Beqaa Governorate.
On December 5, LAF launched raids in the Miniyeh-Danniyeh
and Akkar Districts, North Governorate, searching for alleged
militants who had killed one soldier and wounded another in
an attack on an army post in the city of Bqaa Sifrin the day
before.
In the course of the year, Hezbollah and Jabhat al-Nusra/Fatah
al-Sham repeatedly clashed in Beqaa Governorate and the
neighboring Rif Dimashq Governorate in Syria. On February
2, Hezbollah killed at least four Jabhat al-Nusra members in
Arsal. On April 25, Hezbollah fighters attacked a Jabhat al-
Nusra arms convoy, killing ten militants and destroying two
of their armored vehicles near the Syrian border village Jarajir,
Rif Dimashq Governorate. The next day, Jabhat al-Nusra
militants failed to take over the Hezbollah-controlled Jarajir
heights. Dozens of militants were killed and wounded in the
attack. On May 25, Hezbollah launched an anti-tank missile
on a Jabhat al-Nusra tank in the Qalamoun area, Beqaa Gov-
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