Talk:List of ongoing armed conflicts/Archive 7

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January 2015 updates

Possible Upcoming Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

It is seeming increasingly likely that the FARDC will soon lead a push against the FDLR in the jungles of the Eastern Congo http://www.voanews.com/content/un-congo-prepar-offensive-against-fdlr-rebels/2586565.html . If this comes to pass, there are two ways to approach this one would be to create an entirely new article for the FARDC's offensive against the FDLR another (the one I support) would be to create an article called "Hutu Insurgency in the DRC" or "FDLR Insurgency" and then combine the likely future offensive into that article. Currently the FDLR's activities do not have a wikipedia article outside of Katanga Insurgency (where they really do not belong). Thoughts on this, @Catlemur: @Greyshark09:? AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 07:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I think that a new offensive against the FDLR should be included in the article about Kivu conflict as Phase 3 of the conflict, which currently is described as finished after the end of Phase 2 with the defeat of rebels M23 in 2013. A new article about the offensive should be considered part of that broader conflict, like the 2009 Eastern Congo offensive. A new article about FDLR Insurgency would be redundant since there already is an article about FDLR which needs to be updated.Nykterinos (talk) 11:53, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Agree - seems like the Kivu conflict re-emerged.GreyShark (dibra) 20:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
That does make sense, but then we might need to move that article on to this list anyway since even when the a FARDC offensive is not going on there are substantial casualties caused by the FDLR. FARDC and other armed groups. So in that case would anyone oppose/support adding the Kivu Conflict to the list of ongoing armed conflicts? AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 23:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Is this related 99 killed on Burundi-Congo border?GreyShark (dibra) 20:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes and no, the attack was most likely done by some sort of Hutu militia or another perhaps the FNL or one of its allies. If we are going to go with the idea that all the Eastern DRC Conflicts should be placed into the Kivu Conflict article then it is related, however the Kivu conflict article does not currently reflect the insurgencies waged by the FNL, FDLR, etc. If we combine all Eastern DRC conflicts together we might end up pushing the casualty count for 2014 close to or over 1000 if excess deaths are included (just an estimate not hundred percent certain of that). AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 00:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I honestly don’t know if FNL and other groups can be considered part of the Kivu conflict, but it seemed to me that FDLR is one of the key rebel groups of the conflict, from the beginning in the aftermath of the second Congo war. Therefore, I support adding the FDLR-Kivu Conflict to the list of ongoing armed conflicts, as long as reliable data about the fatalities can be found. Regarding excess deaths: if I don’t misunderstand the article, only violent deaths (fatalities), and not also indirect deaths, should be included in the death toll. At least for the current and previous year, it seems to me clear that only violent deaths are counted, because the difference in mortality rates is not yet known (for example, for Syria and Iraq only violent, documented deaths are counted by SOHR and IBC). Perhaps the introduction to the article should address the question.Nykterinos (talk) 01:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
@AbsolutelyHaram: the question is whether the sources refer to Burundi-Congo border clashes as part of the Kivu conflict; if not then we shouldn't refer to it as such. Looking more into the articles on the Burundi-Congo border violence in the past week, it seems that the sources are referring to it as related to Kivu instability: "Burundian officials and witnesses said the group of unidentified fighters crossed into the country overnight on Monday from DRC's eastern Kivu region, a chronically unstable and resource-rich area that is home to dozens of rebel groups." [1]. I therefore suggest to update the Kivu conflict as "3rd phase" and readd it to the table.GreyShark (dibra) 20:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
The VOA source is also connecting all the dots with the Kivu conflict.GreyShark (dibra) 21:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
@Greyshark09:@Catlemur: @Nykterinos: I updated Kivu Conflict a bit to reflect the current status and added it to the list. Casualty totals for 2014, and total casualties are a working estimate. In a few days I'll have accurate estimates for both. Also, I started a subreddit on reddit called /r/DRCConflict (it will be in the style of /r/syriancivilwar). If/when war breaks out on a full scale in the Congo it will be useful for aggregating news sources. AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 03:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

DHKP/C insurgency in Turkey

Looks like the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front is continuing to make troubles in Turkey with a terrorist campaign - 2015 Istanbul suicide bombing is claimed by them, though Al-Qaeda and ISIL are also suspected. In any case, DHKP/C insurgency has so far produced about 20 fatalities in the past 15 years, but could be much more in the 1980s and 1990s. Could anyone count the fatalities per sources? if indeed 2015 Istanbul suicide bombing is DHKP/C's work, then they might be added here (if total fatalities are above 100 of course).GreyShark (dibra) 20:23, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

@User:Greyshark09, 2015 Istanbul suicide bombing was a lone wolf Islamist attack which has links with ISIS. Total fatalities are 1 preperator and 1 policeman. kazekagetr 20:59, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

There was a DHKP/C attack today with three people killed, a hostage and two DHKP/C militants see here [2].XavierGreen (talk) 00:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, saw it too. It is time to start an article on this insurgency and add it to the list (it seems well over 100 cumulative deaths).GreyShark (dibra) 17:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
OK - created the article and counted the casualties (some with no sources, some missing), but got only 30-32 killed, which is not sufficient for inclusion.GreyShark (dibra) 21:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Mozambique

The RENAMO insurgency ended in September 2014 and there have been no signs of conflict since. It should be removed, as it is not an ongoing conflict. DylanLacey (talk) 02:50, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

The criteria for ongoing is not a shaky peace agreement, but actual lack of fatalities for more than a year (look at the guidelines on the top of the page). The statistics are that most of cease-fire and peace agreements collapse within several months, so unfortunately there are high chances that RENAMO will resurge on the course of this year. If you look at the news, you can see that RENAMO spokesman was arrested earlier this week for anti-government activities, which are on the brink of violence, due to a political crisis with RENAMO.GreyShark (dibra) 06:22, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Map Changes Going into 2015

  • DRC should be colored red (Even if the current casualty estimates are off (which they are to a certain extent, until uppalsa releases their 2014 report I'm in the dark about a lot of mai mai attacks, given the massive amount of IDPs we can make a reasonable assumption that at least a few hundred people have died till we get more data) in either case the FARDC is going to push against the FDLR this year so casualties will inevitably go over thousand due to civilian deaths)
  • Burundi should be colored yellow (FLN is a Burundian phenomenon, recent attack by them was on the Burundi-DRC border, so including them makes sense)
  • Afghanistan should be colored dark red
  • Taiwan should be greyed (de facto it is an independent country, and its claim over China is irrelevant as they are not a party in the Xingjang Conflict) AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 05:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Sudan should be colored red. Nykterinos (talk) 16:27, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Colour Paraguay and Eritrea.I know the fatalities are really low but those are conflicts still.--Catlemur (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Afghanistan should have been dark red weeks ago, can someone please change that? As for the rest, I am personally for Taiwan going gray, And Eritrea needs to be colored as well. Paraguay has not crossed 100 total fatalities yet, so it remains off the map. Same goes for DRC, until we get a source it cannot change based solely on estimates. Skycycle (talk) 12:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I've updated 2014 DRC fatalities using ACLED, and now it's 468 (Kivu)+440 (ADF)+123 (Katanga)=1031 fatalities, so it should be colored red. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nykterinos (talk • contribs) 15:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Boko Haram in Cameroon

I can see Boko Haram spillover in Cameroon has just been added by user:Kristijh - some explanation here will help.GreyShark (dibra) 19:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC) Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/boko-haram-fighters-believed-kidnapped-5001347 ~~Leo33665~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.72.162.58 (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that the deaths regarding Islamist insurgency in Nigeria and Boko Haram spillover in Cameroon should be combined. It is essentially one conflict being fought in both northen Nigeria and Northern Cameroon. What do you guys think? 98.230.35.253 (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)Leo3367598.230.35.253 (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger should be considered a single conflict. By the way, I suggest renaming the conflict “Boko Haram insurgency” (start of conflict 2009) instead of “Islamist insurgency in Nigeria” and wikilinking the article about Boko Haram, which is much more detailed and updated, instead of the article about Islamist insurgency in Nigeria. Nykterinos (talk) 16:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't have the time to check if it was you, but someone had already linked it to Boko Haram, which I just undid. Whoever it was, next time discuss here first and get consensus! Skycycle (talk) 12:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
I’ve already discussed my edit: Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and neighbouring States should be considered a single conflict, as it involves the same actors, therefore the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria spillover in Cameroon entry, which User:Kristijh keeps adding, should be deleted; Boko Haram insurgency should link to Boko Haram and not to Islamist insurgency in Nigeria, because the latter is not updated and is limited to Nigeria. @Skycycle: @Kristijh: @Greyshark09: @DylanLacey: what do other editors think? Nykterinos (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
All of this I agree with, but IMO it's better to keep the link to the Islamist article and expand and update that instead. The conflict is one of the largest in the world by now and deserves a proper map (like Syria, Iraq, etc) and a large update + inclusion of activities of Cameroon and Chad in recent months. Skycycle (talk) 15:04, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Agree that Boko Haram insurgency is a single conflict (including spillovers); it is not similar to the case of Syrian Civil War and Syrian civil war spillover in Lebanon, because there there is a separate conflict in Lebanon named Bab al-Tabbaneh–Jabal Mohsen conflict, which is affected from Syrian violence but is not part of it, and also Lebanese-Syrian clashes between Lebanese Army+Hezbollah vs. Al-Nusra (one of the groups in Syria) is not the same as Boko Haram (the only powerful Jihadi force in Nigeria) raids on neighbouring countries. In addition, i think we better rename Islamist insurgency in Nigeria -> Boko Haram insurgency per user:Nykterinos's suggestion to reflect the changes in the conflict over the past months.GreyShark (dibra) 16:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree with user:Nykterinos's suggestion, I'm swamped right now with stuff so I won't be able to help at all though. AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 22:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - user:Kristijh is constantly edit-warring by trying to add the spillover articles, with no respect to this discussion. His next revert will result in filing an edit-warring complaint.GreyShark (dibra) 17:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Filing a complaint...GreyShark (dibra) 17:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Not the first time this has happened either, I hope something is done! Skycycle (talk) 18:34, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
@Middayexpress: as well.GreyShark (dibra) 19:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Al-Qaeda involvement in Europe

The Al-Qaeda involvement in Europe is clearly active with the recent line of incidents in France and Belgium, and the number of casualties is well in the hundreds (just Madrid bombings was at 100+ killed). Opinions?GreyShark (dibra) 19:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems that the 2004 Madrid train bombings are not attributed to al-Qaeda, and without it I don’t think we reach 100 cumulative deaths; besides, if we consider al-Qaeda-Europe a separate conflict, we should include in this conflict al-Qaeda militants killed by European countries in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, etc., i.e. in conflicts already included in the list. Not even US-al-Qaeda is listed as a separate conflict, even though it’s much more intense. Nykterinos (talk) 01:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Spillovers?

Somali Civil War spillover has been added by somebody, i think this should be merged into Somali Civil War. I think 100+ total casualties should be the requirement for creating "spillover" article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AbsolutelyHaram (talk • contribs) 03:28, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I merged that WP:POVFORK back into 2011–14 terrorist attacks in Kenya, as it was just a duplicate of it. Many of the attacks are also not the work of Al-Shabaab but rather local Kenyan groups, as already explained [3]. It has since then also come to light that the Kenyan government was/is operating death squads, assassination units which have themselves claimed responsibility for many of the killings [4]. Middayexpress (talk) 18:47, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
@AbsolutelyHaram: See the above section on spillover of the Boko Haram insurgency.GreyShark (dibra) 18:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
@Greyshark09: Saw it and I agree with the name change. AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 06:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Naming Conventions?

Why do we call things insurgencies when the non-state actors have de facto control of territory? Both Boko Haram and the Houthi's have de facto control of large amounts of territory. I suggest that we come up with a consensus on what the meaning of "insurgency," and "civil war" mean. Until recently the war in Iraq was called "Iraq Insurgency" when it is quite clear that IS/ISIS/Da3sh has set up a governmental structure and is in clear control of portions of Iraq. AbsolutelyHaram (talk) 23:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

We cannot discuss such general things here, but rather at an article page itself (each article separately, unless you want to go for a village pump, but i doubt it is relevant).GreyShark (dibra) 12:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Egyptian conflict

Recently the Egyptian Conflict (2011-present), was removed in favor of Sinai insurgency, as protests in Egypt "paused" for some time. Removal of Egyptian Crisis was done, despite the fact that there had been casualties in violence in Egypt throughout 2014 (not only in Sinai), and in contrast to article guidelines to continue listing conflicts in case there are fatalities in current or previous year. Now, quite expectedly, the Egyptian conflict produces more deaths, with at least 1 dead in Alexandria [5]. I herewith raise the return of Egyptian conflict to the list as a whole, including the combined casualties rate (Sinai violence+Egypt wide violence).GreyShark (dibra) 12:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Support - I agree that the whole conflict in Egypt should be listed and not just the Sinai insurgency: ACLED counts 5,318 fatalities in Egypt from January 2011 to December 2014, of which 1,540 in Sinai, and 1,415 fatalities in Egypt in 2014, of which 981 in Sinai. These data show that the conflict in Sinai has escalated in the past year and accounted for most of the fatalities in Egypt, but a considerable number of people are still killed in battles, riots and protests outside of Sinai. Finally, if we list the whole conflict in Egypt, Egypt should be colored red. Nykterinos (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
Don't Support Excluding the Sinai all the deaths in Egypt are primarily protest related. If we start to include deaths from protesting we will have to apply that standard to places like tibet and Bahrain. We will have to add a 5th conflict to the DRC (That might be a record for number of simultaneous conflicts), since more than a hundred people have been killed in protests there this past month. Do we include protest deaths in Xingjang, Kashmir, NE India in their respective conflicts? This list is for "ongoing armed conflicts" ideally there should be another list for persistent violent civil unrest that Egypt, Tibet, Xingjang should go on. AbsolutelyHalal (talk) 02:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Oppose per Halal.Catlemur (talk) 09:04, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Oppose The protests across Egypt would be better suited to List of ongoing protests. If they escalate into an armed conflict, then they could be added as a separate entry. Currently, the Post-coup unrest in Egypt (2013–14) article says the unrest ended in January last year, which is a bit questionable. DylanLacey (talk) 11:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Diagram of 2013-2014 fatalities world's 15 deadliest conflicts

2013-2014 fatalities in the world's 15 deadliest armed conflicts.
"Death Toll in 2014's Bloodiest Wars Sharply Up on Previous Year" (PDF). Project for the Study of the 21st Century. 17 March 2015.

This diagram implies a strong increase in total fatalities in the 15 deadliest conflicts. However, this is misleading, since the 15 deadliest conflicts in 2013 were not the same, and some of them have certainly seen a decrease in fatalities, causing this diagram to display a rather selected sample of those conflicts that have seen an increase in fatalities. I don't see Mexico, for example. Mikael Häggström (talk) 07:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

You're right that the 15 deadliest conflicts in 2013 were not the same (Mali and Russia were included, Ukraine and Israel/Plaestine excluded), and therefore the caption is misleading. I'll change it to "Fatalities in the 15 deadliest armed conflicts in the world in 2014 with comparable 2013 statistics". However, the result is the same if one considers the 15 deadliest conflicts in 2013, which caused 125,831 fatalities (instead of the 124,478 fatalities in the armed conflicts which in 2014 became the deadliest). Mexico isn't included in the diagram in 2013 nor in 2014 because it isn't considered an armed conflict in the cited study ([6]), which I used for the sake of homogeneity and availability of data (currently, our table doesn't display 2013 data, and they may have been taken from sources different from the ones used for 2014). Nykterinos (talk) 18:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Also why do you put Israel/Palestine, but not Ukraine/Russia or Nigeria/Cameroon/Niger/Chad? There should be some rule here.GreyShark (dibra) 18:21, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The data are those of the cited study, which considers countries and not armed conflicts/locations as we do. I guess they consider the borders between Israel and Palestine disputed, and therefore they treat them as a single country. But I agree they could have listed just Palestine. We could make graphs with our own data, if we restored the 2013 column and made sure the data of different years are comparable. But I thought that representing the results of that study, which has been widely covered in RS, could be interesting and informative on its own. Nykterinos (talk) 20:04, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
I think that just like in case of Nigeria, Ukraine and Syria - one country name is enough and here Palestine is will do. Ukraine/Russia is pretty identical case with the disputed South-Eastern Ukraine areas claimed by Russian separatists (or Russian Federation in case of Crimea).GreyShark (dibra) 20:12, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
But writing only "Palestine" in the graph would mean to misrepresent the data of the cited study. Evidently, their figures take into account also the (few) deaths taking place in the territory of Israel. In the case of the war in Donbass, they took into account only the deaths occuring in the territory of Ukraine (and, as far as I know, no deaths occured in the territory of Russia), in the same way as they took into account only the deaths occurring in Nigeria for the Boko Haram insurgency. This is because they go by (single) countries - exceptionally considering Israel/Palestine as a single country -, not by armed conflicts as we do. Nykterinos (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Obviously the Donbass is considered as Russia by the separatists (as is Crimea). I don't know why they decided to treat IP conflict differently. You are correct however that we should stick to the source.GreyShark (dibra) 16:02, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - the increase in the conflicts is not really correct in the presentation, since the leading 15 conflicts change. I agree on that with Mikael Häggström. Perhaps we should find another presentation, which is better reflecting reality.GreyShark (dibra) 16:02, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I uploaded a new version of the graph with both bars (to compare the 15 deadliest countries in 2013 with the 15 deadliest in 2014) and the areas already present in the old graph (to compare the 15 deadliest countries in 2014 with the same countries in 2013). As you can see, the only difference is the presence of Mali and Russia instead of Israel/Palestine and Ukraine in the 2013 bar. Nykterinos (talk) 17:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I like this version with two barn more, since it more convincingly indicates an overall increase in fatalities. Still I must say, the height of the 2013 bar wasn't much taller than the left part of the slope, so the misleading effect I mentioned apparently wasn't that large after all. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:30, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback! Nykterinos (talk) 10:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
I chose the 15-countries table because I thought that, since the numbers 16-20 add only a small number of fatalities, their coloured areas would make the graph more difficult to read (some of the thinner lines are already difficult to distinguish) without adding significant information. Nykterinos (talk) 22:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Actually i can count 17 in the box for some reason (?!) and frankly all colors beyond the first 10 are non-distinguishable. WDYT?GreyShark (dibra) 17:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
17 in the box is due to the fact that the top 15 change between 2013 and 2014 (2 change, 15+2=17). As I said, the thinner lines are difficult to distinguish, but I think the contrast between them is enough to tell them apart, as far as possible. Nykterinos (talk) 18:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply; it is a good idea to have this table and thanks for making it. Just one final remark to summarize - in my opinion it can look better with 10 countries (it is also more common to use "top 10" in most scoring systems).GreyShark (dibra) 17:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you too for the feedback. I agree that it could look better with 10 countries, but I fear that would leave out 4 major conflicts with more than 1,000 deaths in 2014 (Libya, Israel/Palestine, Yemen, DRC), making the graph a little less representative. Therefore, I’d prefer to keep the 15-countries graph. However, if more editors prefer to have just 10 countries, I can change it. Nykterinos (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

March 2015

Sectarianism in Pakistan

@Kristijh: can you explain the addition of sectarianism in Pakistan? i believe you refer to the Shia-Sunni conflict in the country, but we need some casualties overview and reference to it as a separate conflict from other events in Pakistan to include it here.GreyShark (dibra) 20:46, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

New report about 2014 conflict-related fatalities

I’d like to bring to your attention this report by a new think tank about conflict-related fatalities in the world in 2014. Their data are mostly the same as ours: I think we can say we’ve done a good work in selecting the best available sources. Our table is even more precise, since we distinguish between different conflicts taking place in the same country (like in Sudan and DRC). Major differences: they don’t list Mexico, nor Egypt, nor China. The global picture is grim, with a 28% increase in fatalites between 2013 and 2014. Perhaps we could add a graph to show the difference in the number of fatalities in the main countries. Nykterinos (talk) 23:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

By the way, why don't we keep the 2013 fatalities column, so that one can see the change in the number of fatalities in the last two years? Nykterinos (talk) 19:13, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Well, i dont see a problem leaving the column, so long as it is clear in the inclusion criteria that conflicts are considered ongoing for the purposes of this page in that they have head a death in the current or previous year. In otherwords, deaths from 2013 would not be considered when contemplating whether or not a conflict is to be included on this page.XavierGreen (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Maybe we can make historical tables for previous years as a subpage?GreyShark (dibra) 19:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I don't mean to change the guidelines for inclusion (at least one death in current or past calendar year). I don't know how subpages work. Reading WP:SUB, I understand that you can't create a subpage for an article. If another column makes the table too cramped, we can drop it. Nykterinos (talk) 23:47, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Yemeni Crisis

I have second thoughts on the presentation of the Yemeni Crisis here and about the topic as a whole. I think we should transform the existing articles to fit the Iraqi insurgency scheme - separate the events before 2011 (Iraqi insurgency (2003-11)) and after 2011 (Iraqi insurgency (2011-present)). So probably we should do the same with the Yemeni Crisis and rename Houthi insurgency in Yemen to Houthi insurgency in Yemen (2004-11) and alike with the AQAP insurgency and Southern movement insurgency. All events from 2011-present are hence to be specified in the Yemeni Crisis main article. Opinions?GreyShark (dibra) 19:11, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Another good reason to rename al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen to al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen (1998–2011) is that in fact AQAP transformed into Ansar al-Sharia (Yemen) back in 2011, so it is not really correct to name the Jihadist post-2011 insurgency in Yemen as "AQAP insurgency".GreyShark (dibra) 19:43, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
AQAP and Ansar al Sharia are the same entity, AQAP uses the Ansar al-Sharia name when it is administering territory to make itself more palatable to the populations in the areas it controls. The organization still uses both names whenever it suits itself to use either.XavierGreen (talk) 02:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
See here [7]XavierGreen (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
That is not the question Xavier. What i say is that similar to the case of Iraqi insurgency transformed from Iraqi insurgency (2003-11) to Iraqi insurgency (2011-present), in Yemen the three tribal conflicts morphed into a single Yemeni Crisis back in 2011. As a result we should limit existing tribal conflict articles to before 2011 (Houthi insurgency in Yemen (2004-11), al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen (1998–2011), South Yemen insurgency (2009–11)), and treating post-2011 developments in those conflicts, or now subconflicts, under Yemeni Crisis to avoid confusion.GreyShark (dibra) 16:14, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

April 2015

Yemeni Crisis

As battle continues in Aden, it looks like this conflict will pass the 10,000 dead mark by the end of the year. Are map colours based on last year, or the current year so far?

First please don't forget to finish your comment with '''' sign, so your signature would appear. Regarding Yemen, when it passes 10,000 we shall update it to very intense conflict. We are not prophets to guess the future.GreyShark (dibra) 19:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
I was not suggesting that we predict the future, just asking if map colours are changed based on events this year or figures for last year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.104.155 (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
We use the most severe case of casualties to present the color - usually it is the previous year, but in some emerging conflicts we are updating the color on the course of the year. In case of Yemen, for example, if the 2015 casualty rate tops 10,000 by June, we shall update the table and the map accordingly in June.GreyShark (dibra) 05:29, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
If the casualty rate is significantly reduced on the course of 2015, then we shall update only in the end of the 2015. For example, Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been very low intensity so far (single digit casualties this year), but until the end of the year we cannot be sure it remains so.GreyShark (dibra) 05:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Burundi political crisis

A new conflict is developing in Burundi, but the death toll is so far low (around 10 killed in riots). It looks however the situation is quickly spiraling towards a chaos, with thousands of refugees fleeing to Rwanda.GreyShark (dibra) 17:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Yet it is not really an armed conflict but mostly intrastate protests. Wykx (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
not yet, but typically when casualties top 100 (the condition to be included in this list), it is becoming an armed conflict.GreyShark (dibra) 21:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Somali Civil War

Since February 2015, attacks in Kenya has provoked 176 deaths in both sides. Then I think the situation can justify to add Kenya flag on the Somalia Civil War line. Wykx (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I support adding the Kenyan flag and al-Shabaab-related fatalities to the Somali Civil War entry. Here are other data about past years: [8], [9]. It was also proposed to add the 2011–14 terrorist attacks in Kenya as a separate entry, but that proposal was rejected due to the fact that that article also covers attacks not pepetrated by al-Shabaab. Nykterinos (talk) 19:32, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, the war in indeed ongoing in Kenya. Since it is the same conflict, it would fall under the Somali Civil War entry.XavierGreen (talk) 03:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

May 2015

NLA Insurgency in Macedonia

A faction from the NLA has been engaged in a very low level insurgency in macedonia for the past several years. While there had been a few attack here and there there had not been any deaths recently. However, today so far there are at least 5 deaths reported after Macedonian police engaged an NLA group in Kumanovo. Something to keep an eye on.XavierGreen (talk) 01:23, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding it to the watch list on the project page.GreyShark (dibra) 11:37, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I added it to the list about half a year ago, when the NLA fired rockets at the parliament but my edits got reverted.It is indeed very low level.--Catlemur (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
There is actually a faction of Macedonian editors that consistantly revert anything that suggests their is an ongoing insurgency, even though there have been at least 3 attacks in the past 6 months.XavierGreen (talk) 23:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Katanga

The description of the Katanga insurgency describes a conflict involving rebel groups and separatist groups, but it doesn't mention pygmies. Within the past 5 months, over 200 people have been killed during a conflict between pygmies. Would this pertain to the Katanga insurgency, or would it fall under a different conflict? I obtained this information from Radio okapi.

http://radiookapi.net/emissions-2/dialogue-entre-congolais/2015/05/20/nord-katanga-plus-de-200-morts-dans-le-conflit-entre-pygmees-bantus/

YDN8 (talk) 21:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeed it should be watched closely. Official toll is not so high. http://www.romandie.com/news/RDC-plusieurs-morts-dans-une-nouvelle-flambee-de-violences/591797.rom and ACLED gives a figure of deaths of 28 in 2014 and 66 in 2015. Wykx (talk) 13:16, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Certainly a different conflict, having nothing to do with Mai Mai style rebels.--Catlemur (talk) 22:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is ongoing.

In 2015, there were 2-3 inceidents between Israel and Hezbollah (depends who you ask) and there were claims that Israel also attack shipment of weapons to Hezbollah in Syria. Altough there is a De-Jure ceace-fire, people died... Shouldn't it be added to the fewer then 100 section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolter21 (talk • contribs) 11:26, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

So, whom did you ask?GreyShark (dibra) 11:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
It might actually have something to do with the Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon though. Jackninja5 (talk) 11:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
This conflict acaully started in 1982, long before the Syrian Civil War.--Bolter21 (talk) 17:24, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
I would actually consider putting it under Iran-Israel proxy conflict.GreyShark (dibra) 18:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
I disagree. Iran-Israel proxy conflict is not like the cold war. It is mainly things that happen under the surfece. Israel's aiding to FSA and Kurds in Iran is something that is not certain while how much does Iran support Hamas and Hezbollah is also not known. Some will say the the second Lebanese war is part of the Israeli-Iran proxy war while some will say that the entire Syrian Civil war is also part of it.. I will say that if we put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seperated then the Israeli-Arab conflict so the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict also need to have a name for it's own. For overall casulties breakdown, I can only say that the Second Lebanese war and every incident since then is a resault directly of the conflict while all before are not certain. Maybe another name such as Clashes between Israel and Hezbollah after 2006 Lebanon War — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolter21 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
In any case, most of the casualties you are referring to are already listed under Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War, which is part of the statistics of the Syrian Civil War. The few incidents allegedly involving Hezbollah against Israeli border patrols were not confirmed by both parties, so i'm not sure we can list it as genuine Israel-Hezbollah fatalities.GreyShark (dibra) 21:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
Alright, I agree with you. Should we delete this section?--Bolter21 (talk) 10:15, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
What do you mean "delete this section"? here on the talk page?GreyShark (dibra) 18:02, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Does this discussion continue existing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolter21 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Of course continues existing - the talk page discussion is never deleted, unless something very rude is written.GreyShark (dibra) 16:12, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

July 2015

Socialist/Communist Insurgency in Turkey

I saw that yesterday july 24th a DHKP/c militant was killed by Turkish police and also that the conflict is not listed here, if all the deaths from the various different socialist/maoist/communist turkish groups are added together do they meet the criteria for the page?XavierGreen (talk) 16:21, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

DHKP attacks have killed several people in recent years, but I'm not sure the overall death toll has surpassed 100, maybe someone else can help compile a list of attacks? Skycycle (talk) 12:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
I've already done it - DHKP/c accounts for about 30+ fatalities. I'm however pretty sure that combining them with maoist groups' fatalities is not correct, since DHKP/c is not Maoist and those other groups are dormant for many years. See also Talk:Maoist_insurgency_in_Turkey#Merge.GreyShark (dibra) 07:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I know of at least 1 TiKKo attack that occurred last year, though it seems like their organization has been severely drained of manpower and likely has only a couple dozen militants left at most. The other maoist belligerents i have seen virtually nothing about.XavierGreen (talk) 15:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
How many people died in the TiKKO insurgency?GreyShark (dibra) 16:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
The wiki article for DHKP lists at least 23 casualties since 2001, about half of them members of the group. I support a merger with the TIKKO article into one unified 'Marxist insurgency' or something of the sort. Doubt that both of them combined account for more than 50 at this point, but in due time the article might be included. Never hurts to have it already :) Skycycle (talk) 21:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm not very familiar with the Marxist / Communist / Maoist groups in Turkey, but my feeling is that we need a good source to classify them in order to merge TiKKo with DHCP. Nevertheless, seems like both ways, the insurgencies are too insignificant at this point. Maybe DHCP may "reach the hall of fame" in 5 years at current rate of terrorist acts.GreyShark (dibra) 12:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Dahalo in Madagascar

Should there be a conflict involving the dahalo? Though they are bandits, ACLED refers to them as "Dahalo Milita". According to ACLED, there have been 81 casualties this year during conflict involving the dahalo. I calculated 440 casualties in 2014 with the CCAPS conflict dashboard. ( http://ccaps.aiddata.org/conflict?md5Filters=36b1d8921b1657377b0b7b571ba91b67 ) YDN8 (talk) 03:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It seems more some organized zebus thieves with villagers that rely on the military/police forces to protect them. I wouldn't consider it an organized conflict with incompatible claims from two parties involved. Wykx (talk) 08:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Isn't this have any relation to the Turkish-PKK conflict?--Bolter21 (talk) 23:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

June 2015

ISIL-Hamas conflict in Gaza

Looks like we have a new flash point - the Ansar al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Ghaza (ISIL in Gaza) is engaging Hamas in sporadic clashes. One person was killed so far, thus putting on the watch list.GreyShark (dibra) 21:25, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

A better name will be Gazan Civil Conflict and already two important people were killed. ISIL wing's leader Yunis Hunnar and Hamas's high ranked leader Saber Siam. More deaths may have took place but I havent researched about it too much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolter21 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Iraq conflict time span

Editors decided to split the Iraqi post US-withdrawal conflict from 2011 to two phases: 2011-2013 and 2014-present. It is however also certain that this is basically the same sectarian conflict as the 2003-2011 Iraq war, so i propose to list the total casualties from at least 2003, like we do with the Afghanistan conflict.GreyShark (dibra) 10:02, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I totally agree Wykx (talk) 10:41, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree: the main actors are the same since 2003. In the cumulative fatalities count, we should probably list excess deaths besides the violent deaths documented by IBC, even though estimates vary greatly according to different studies. Nykterinos (talk) 21:49, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Kurdish separatism in Iran

It seems that with the third incident within several months the Kurdish PDKI returns to an armed struggle. I herewith change from Iran-PJAK conflict to the Kurdish separatism in Iran, to include both the rebellion of PJAK and the resumed insurgency of PDKI. Also updated the death tolls for 2014-2015 to include PDKI related deaths.GreyShark (dibra) 14:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Darfur and South Kordofan

Is it possible to condense the War in Darfur and the South Kordofan Conflict into one conflict since they share many of the same combatants (Rapid Support Force, Sudanese Armed Forces, Justice and Equality Movement, ect). YDN8 (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, for the Sudanese Armed Forces and JEM, this is because those two are nation-wide represented but the conflicts are different: in Darfur, this is basically a conflict with the non-Arab populations while in South Kordofan (where independance referendum should be held as in South Sudan but has been postponed) it is linked with the South Sudan populations/ethnic concerns. Both are intertwined but still with distinct leading rebel forces. Wykx (talk) 20:22, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

El Salvador

I have added the war with gangs in El Salvador since the truce is over in November 2014 and that the homicide rate has sharply risen, like in Mexico. Wykx (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree to include this conflict as suggested. My reasoning is that we can identify clear belligerents, similar to the Mexican Drug War. In Salvadorian case, those are the Mara Salvatrucha, Calle 18, Sombra Negra and Rebels 13. We should however define the exact conflict between those gangs (perhaps El-Salvador drug conflict) and separate it from the general crime article, because we shouldn't count minor crime events unrelated with the gang war.GreyShark (dibra) 06:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
That's why in the figures displayed for the article, I proposed at least to apply the same 45% rate of crime-related as in Mexico unless we find more accurate data for this rate (maybe by comparing the average crime-level before escalation and after?).Wykx (talk) 06:44, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Unless the army is actually deployed and is actively combating the gangs I believe that the gang violence does not constitute a war.--Catlemur (talk) 21:35, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

A good question is whether to include such violence in this list, however the general guideline has been to list events with 2 or more armed participating bodies (whether states or organizations). In the Mexican case this is indeed including Army participation, but on the other hand - for example the Chiapas conflict has mostly been waging between pro-Government and anti-Government militias.GreyShark (dibra) 06:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Two articles are quite insightful for this conflict from:
-The Guardian which states that "60% of the victims were criminals killed by rival gangs or by colleagues in the same criminal group. (...) a deliberate attempt by criminal organizations to ramp up violence as a means of pressure".
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/el-salvador-homicide-killings-gangs
- Insightcrime which states in the first article how gangs are now threatening of direct 'war' against the governement and the second one where government states he is 'at war' with gangs.
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/el-salvador-gangs-issue-threats-in-video
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/el-salvador-police-at-war-with-gangs
Now this is quite in one-way or indirect but I would say the result is the same, such level of violence is unprecedented and much much higher than many other conflicts listed here between two parties and even if gangs tactic to reply to the government's strategy is not of direct confrontation still. Wykx (talk) 06:41, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

There is gang related violence everywhere, it so happens that the homicide rates in Salvador are really high. The way I see it there must be some kind of ideological motivation for the violence or military involvement for it to constitute a war.Some factions in Chiapas had the goal of creating leftist communes, while Mexican drug gangs are directly engaging the military, unlike them Salvador seems to be an arena for a turf war between gangs.At this point I am even questioning the addition of Bangladesh, since the is merely expressed in riots and acts of limited urban terrorism.--Catlemur (talk) 11:14, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

El Salvador's street gangs have reportedly carried out over 250 attacks on security forces so far this year. Isn't it military? (As for Bangladesh, only attacks against/by islamists rebels claiming separeted Islamic state applying are included in the figures.) Wykx (talk) 17:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/250-gang-attacks-on-el-salvador-security-forces-in-2015
The most basic criteria has always been that there must be armed conflict between two organized belligerents, if the military is fighting the cartels and the cartels have organized armed forces (like the mexican cartels do), than it would qualify for the list. If there is no organized resistance from the cartels or the military is not actively fighting them, than i would say it does not belong on the list. Note that a military does not need to be involved at all for a conflict to be listed here, merely two organized armed belligerents (IE two private militias fighting a sustained campaign against one another would qualify).XavierGreen (talk) 18:33, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
Good point - based on such assessment the El Salvador conflict doesnt belong here, unless we can identify clear belligerent organizations/gangs. There are indeed major gangs, but the question is how many deaths are attributed to their organized insurgency, rather than general high level of crime.GreyShark (dibra) 16:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - removed al-Salvador, until there is a consensus.GreyShark (dibra) 19:43, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Interesting, fresh analysis showed that rise in homicides are not completely linked to gangs. So we keep it removed for the time being. http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/report-few-el-salvador-homicides-involve-gang-members

Situation is still developing http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/el-salvador-murder-rate-record-high-150727122139968.html amid accusations from each side. Keep an eye at it. Wykx (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Renamo resurging

Obviously, we see another cease fire "peace" agreement failing with RENAMO launching a full-scale attack on Mazimbuquan troops on June 23rd - 45 killed. It emphasizes the importance of the standing rule to continue listing conflicts (with fatalities in current or past calendar year) despite seeming "peace agreements" or "cease-fires".GreyShark (dibra) 19:43, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Sectarianism in Pakistan

I'm not sure when it was added, but i must ask - is it related with the War in North-West Pakistan, or we are talking on additional fatalities?GreyShark (dibra) 19:46, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

It is additional fatalities, and Shias are currently main targets. History of the conflict is explained on this page http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/backgrounders/index.html Wykx (talk) 20:34, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I see, indeed Sectarianism in Pakistan is the best fit page. Maybe we should rename it to Sectarian conflict in Pakistan?GreyShark (dibra) 14:58, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Social violence in Nigeria

Why did you removed it? Wykx (talk) 20:00, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

What does Social violence in Nigeria mean? I am aware of tribal / ethnic warfare sporadically occuring between various groups, but perhaps you might explain what exactly "social violence in nigeria" refers to?XavierGreen (talk) 20:10, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
As said by Xavier - what is "social violence in Nigeria"?GreyShark (dibra) 20:14, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
This is really well explained in the document which was referenced http://www.connectsaisafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Nigeria-Social-Violence-Project-Summary_v126.pdf. States affected in Nigeria are not the same as the ones where Boko Haram is acting. Mainly it groups two types of conflicts:
'Communal fatalities' are those attributed to actors primarily divided by cultural, ethnic, or religious communities and identities.
'Herder-Farmer fatalities' are those attributed to herders (in particular the Fulani or Hausa) or farmers (in particular the Tiv or Tarok), typically involving disputes over land and/or cattle. Maybe the title 'Social violence' is too large and could be refined. Wykx (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I think the key here is to ask whether or not the violence in question is an organized conflict, for example I think the organzied raiding by the Fulani's and counterattacks by their opponents definitely would qualify for inclusion. However isolated incidents of unorganized ethnic or cultural violence would not qualify. To merely put down "social violance in nigeria" is way too overbroad, as it would theoretically include unorganized criminal activity that is not of a paramilitary nature and thus not within the scope of this page.XavierGreen (talk) 21:20, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
In order to give you an idea of the communities clashes, this year this was particularly the case of Ologba against Egba (clashes that started back in 2008). http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/05/stop-this-massacre-agatu-community-begs-nsa-ig/ Depending on years it goes to other communities, on recurring basis considering the high death toll. In know that situation in Nigeria is very complex but it should not undermined the reality of those conflicts. Wykx (talk) 21:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Then what should we do for this one? What would be an appropriate title? Wykx (talk) 09:25, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
perhaps most of the intercommunal violence fits into Christian-Muslim tensions? If so, then we can simply use the Religious violence in Nigeria scope (violence since at least 1953).GreyShark (dibra) 10:42, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I propose 'Communal violence in Nigeria' which represents in 2015 683 fatalities including 496 related to the Fulani Militias with other ethnies because it is not really religious violence (this one has mostly deviated to Boko Haram conflict now). Wykx (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
I agree with "Communal violence in Nigeria" or "Communal conflicts in Nigeria", similar to Sudanese nomadic conflicts. UCDP classifies these conflicts as non-state conflicts between various organized groups (mostly between ethnic militias, and sometimes between Christian and Muslim communities). Nykterinos (talk) 23:35, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
You can see this UCDP backgrounder about "communal conflicts in Nigeria". They include religious, ethnic and pastoralist-farmer conflicts. In the Niger Delta region, they partly overlap with the conflict in the Niger Delta, which we list separately. Nykterinos (talk) 10:02, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Indeed - what about the conflict in the Niger Delta? How much does it overlap? (it is already listed)GreyShark (dibra) 14:55, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
I don’t know for sure, but, to avoid double counting, we can exclude communal conflicts in the Niger Delta region from the “communal conflicts in Nigeria” entry. According to ACLED, in 2014 most ethnic conflicts took place in the Benue, Nassarawa, Zamfara, Kaduna, Taraba and Plateau North-Central states (1,737 fatalities) and mainly involved Fulani ethnic militias. Only 14 fatalities from ethnic militias were recorded in the Niger Delta states. Nykterinos (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion, first there has to be a sourced topic for an article - maybe Fulani conflict, which would help to make something structural and differentiated from Islamist conflict in the North and trafficking conflict in the Niger Delta.GreyShark (dibra) 21:29, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
It would be great, we shall create it.Wykx (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
So, what do we do? Would you like to start it?GreyShark (dibra) 07:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I could try it but not before September because I won't have easy access. Wykx (talk) 18:10, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I have now started the page and inserted the related link. Wykx (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Will 2014 stay in the list when we hit 1 January 2016?

It seems that the numbers of 2013 were eliminated from the list. Will we do the same in 2016 with 2014? I disagree. (And yes I know, there are still two and a little months to 2016 but this concerns me since February. --Bolter21 21:13, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should use whether List_of_number_of_conflicts_per_year or a new created page to keep a table with list of conflicts on the left and numbers in columns per year. Wykx (talk) 23:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm in favour of keeping 2014 data in some form. Maybe we could create a page titled List of armed conflicts in 2014, with List of number of conflicts per year as the umbrella article which highlights the most serious ones. Nykterinos (talk) 23:22, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
I think We leave it in this page. If we for example remove the "fatalities in" in the columns and just write "2014", "2015", "2016" or maybe write "Fata. 2014" we can even save place for keeping 2014 when 2017 comes in. I think this something that is important to have when listing ongoing conflicts. --Bolter21 10:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
This page is about Ongoing conflicts, so the 2014 data is of no interest to the topic already. The reason we keep the statistics of past year is in order to determine which conflicts are ongoing and which are not per guidelines of this page. It was agreed that current or past year fatalities are the criteria for inclusion, so when this year ends - 2014 statistics looses all meaning; furthermore, it is technically problematic to increase the number of columns for readibility (especially for mobile). We may, however, keep the past years' statistics in the talk page archive (creating Talk:List of ongoing armed conflicts/2014 fatalities), or we can use List of number of conflicts per year umbrella for that purpose.GreyShark (dibra) 11:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree, having data more than 2 years old is counterproductive to the purpose of the page.XavierGreen (talk) 17:31, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Inclusion and importance criteria

I would like to raise the issue of grouping conflicts by fatality rate (10,000+/year, 1,000+/year, 100+/year or 1-99/year)- whether to use the upper estimate, the lower estimate or something in between (median for instance). There is no structured policy on this so far and there are cases when conflicts were grouped by upper threshold, while in other cases the conflicts were grouped by lower threshold. As indicated by user Nykterinos, the current status quo on this article is that we use the lower estimate for the sorting feature of the table. On the other hand, sorting tables doesn't necessarily imply the grouping (10,000+/year, 1,000+/year, 100+/year or 1-99/year). Similarly there might be cases when lower threshold of total fatalities is 90 and upper threshold is 105; considering that the inclusion criteria is 100+ deaths - would we include such case in the list or not? Opinions are welcome.GreyShark (dibra) 21:17, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest the following. For purposes of inclusion of a conflict within the scope of the page, the upper estimate of a conflicts fatalities be used. However when deciding which tier to include it in, the lower level estimate should be used. This way we err on the side of inclusion for a conflict that is obviously ongoing while at the same time not placing too much emphasis on overstated casualty figures.XavierGreen (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
This proposal seems reasonable to me. Even if I would certainly challenge the overstated casualty figures after a certain time to maintain consistency! Wykx (talk) 05:53, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Following this rule, should I move the Turkey-PKK conflict in the 100-1000 tier ? PKK claims around 500 deaths whereas Turkey is now claiming 2000 deaths. Wykx (talk) 15:00, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Concerning the PKK rebellion, it seems the PKK statistics do not include civilians and are a little outdated. I will look into a more recent estimate, but i would say we are quite around 1000 as a lower estimate.GreyShark (dibra) 19:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
According to this article from 20 September, the governement figures have been revised above 1120: [[10]] "More than 120 soldiers and police have been killed in rebel attacks since the escalation began, according to pro-government media. The government claims to have killed more than a thousand rebels in airstrikes and ground operations in northern Iraq and south-east Turkey." What is still difficult to estimate is the accuracy of this 'more than 1000' estimation of rebels killed in strikes. Wykx (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Deaths by country: Egypt

@Wykx:: In the “deaths by country” table, the data for Egypt in 2013 and 2014 are not comparable, since the former include the whole country (e.g. the Rabaa massacre), the latter only the Sinai insurgency (1,415 are the fatalities in the whole country in 2014). Since you added Egypt to the table, I changed the 2014 figure to include the whole country as in 2013. In my opinion it makes sense, because this table lists deaths “by country”, not by conflict. However, if we want to list only the Sinai insurgency in this table, too, we can drop Egypt for 2014 (it’s less than 1,000 deaths) and list only the Sinai insurgency death toll for 2013 (if it’s more than 643).Nykterinos (talk) 13:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Nykterios:, the point is that Protests in Egypt had not been recognized as a "conflict" if I refer to the previous discussion [[11]]. Even if I was not part of the discussion at that time and maybe I would oppose that today, I'm looking for consistency. Therefore, whether we remove Egypt from 2013 and also remove Egypt from the list "over 1000 deaths by country" in 2014, whether we reconsider the position by consensus and include Egyptian protests in 2014 for the whole article. I would be interested to obtain points of view of those who were active at that time. Wykx (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I checked ACLED data: deaths in the Sinai in 2013 were 435, so, if we include only the Sinai insurgency in the "deaths by country" section, too, Egypt must be removed from the table both in 2013 and in 2014. Nykterinos (talk) 13:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Indeed, let's do that... Could you correct the graph accordingly? Thanks Wykx (talk) 14:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I can, but I'm not convinced Egypt should be removed. In the last discussion we had about the Egyptian unrest back in February, it was agreed that there is an armed conflict in mainland Egypt, too, but we didn't have a proper article to link. Besides, there is still uncertainty about listing violent unrests: for example, if we list the 2015 Burundian unrest, the Post-coup unrest in Egypt (2013–14) should definitely be listed, too. This unrest is considered an armed conflict, at least to some extent, by Project Ploughshares, CSP and UCDP. Therefore, in my opinion, at least in the "deaths by country" section, where we don't have to link specific conflicts, deaths for the whole country as assessed by ACLED should be listed. Pinging @Greyshark09: @DylanLacey: @Fitzcarmalan: to see what they think. Nykterinos (talk) 11:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
There is certainly a conflict in mainland Egypt (outside of Sinai). We should have an article on that i guess.GreyShark (dibra) 18:39, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, to me it is this one: Post-coup unrest in Egypt (2013–14) Wykx (talk) 22:27, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

September 2015

Conflict in Tajikstan

Islamist fighters linked to dismissed deputy defense minister General Abduhalim Nazarzoda attacked government forces near the capital of Tajikstan today, so far 17 people have been killed. It could be the start of a new armed conflict in the country. See here [[12]].XavierGreen (talk) 16:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Interesting, can you add it to the incubator watch list?GreyShark (dibra) 21:54, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Firefights between the renegadge generals forces and the government continue. So far at least 30 have been killed, and 70 rebels captured. See here: http://www.globalpost.com/article/6646685/2015/09/10/four-more-militants-killed-tajikistan-violence XavierGreen (talk) 19:06, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Casualties are now up to 38 killed, however the leader of the rebels has been killed in action, and it seems likely that the violence will die down. [[13]]XavierGreen (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Fatalities are now up to 47 killed. [[[14]]XavierGreen (talk) 12:26, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Time of Israel-arab conflict

It didn't start at 1948. there were Arab attacks on Jews in the Land of Israel long before (i.e. 1929 Hebron massacre)--95.86.82.214 (talk) 20:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

The listing is only for Palestinian conflict (with PLO and later Hamas), which began in 1964. The earlier are the general Arab-Israeli conflict (mainly 1948-73) and preceding Sectarian conflict in Mandatory Palestine (1920-1948). Those are not exactly continuous however, as the organizations and the states changed significantly over time. GreyShark (dibra) 21:52, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Technically you can claim it started in 1929 since this traditionally mark the beginigs of the conflict (No need for source because:) but we are reffering to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is different then the Intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine since the Jews and the Arabs fought against each other but also fought against the brits and sometimes sided with the brits agaisnt the other party while the brits generally fought both groups. --Bolter21 13:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Arab Israeli conflict couldn't have started before there was Israel and Arab League - the two belligerents, both created in late 1940s. claiming it is same as previous sectarian conflict is anachronism.GreyShark (dibra) 17:33, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
That's exactly what I"ve claimed. --Bolter21 21:23, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
We agree then.GreyShark (dibra) 15:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

August 2015

Turkey against PKK in Iraq

Shouldn't Turkey's airstrikes against PKK in Iraq be considered part of the Turkey-PKK conflict, instead of the Iraq war? The relevant Wikipedia article, Operation Martyr Yalçın, is classified as part of the Turkey-PKK conflict. Anyway, the 2015 Iraq war death toll includes only civilian fatalities for now, so PKK fatalities should be added either there or in the Turkey-PKK conflict death toll. Nykterinos (talk) 12:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

You're right, that would be ideal. It implies to be aware not to count two times the victims. It would be also ideal to add non-civilian casulaties in the Iraq War count as well. But we remark also in the case of PKK fatalities that they have been counted as civilian fatalities. Wykx (talk) 13:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
The 2015 death toll for the Turkey-PKK conflict is still at 29, can someone compile a few sources and update it if they have a chance? I will do it as soon as I have some time, just noting that there has ben a string of attacks in the last few weeks that have killed a few dozen security forces, civilians and PKK members across Southeastern Turkey. Four officers were killed in a roadside bombing just a few hours ago, once more in Sirnak Province. Not sure how we can find ALL the events, but there was roughly an attack per day since the 'ceasefire' broke down. Skycycle (talk) 11:54, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Edit: yet another attack today alone - 1 soldier killed, 7 injured after their helicopter was shot at. ( Link) Skycycle (talk) 12:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
More than 400 killed in past two weeks according to Turkish sources - moving it to mid-intensity conflicts.GreyShark (dibra) 07:26, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, this mean Turkey should go from yellow to orange in the next map update as well. Skycycle (talk) 18:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
The source says “Turkish airstrikes have killed at least 390 PKK militants in northern Iraq”; so Turkey should remain yellow for now, because, according to the rule followed so far, when a conflict takes place across different countries, each country is coloured according to the number of fatalities taking place within it (see e.g. Nigeria-Cameroon-Niger-Chad), and in Turkey there have been less than 100 fatalities due to the Turkey-PKK conflict. Nykterinos (talk) 09:28, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
That is an interesting point you are raising. The practice has so far been to list countries as epicenters of certain conflicts, though indeed some conflicts occurred over two or more countries - Boko Haram insurgency, Syrian Civil War and now Turkey-PKK conflict. Overall, the map should reflect the table, but the fact is that conflicts are not necessarily bound to borders, thus perhaps we need to discuss this case in a broader way - how should it be shown on the map.GreyShark (dibra) 18:08, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Here is how I see it: the map represents the locations listed in the table, and the guidelines say that “Location refers to the state(s) where the main violence takes place”. So, if a conflict takes place across different states (=has multiple locations), those states should be coloured, each according to the amount of violence taking place within it. In the same way, if different conflicts take place within the same state (like in DRC), that state should be coloured according to the sum of the fatalities of the different conflicts. Nykterinos (talk) 19:50, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Well i think the main issue to be considered is what data we have available. Right now we basically only keep running tallies of how many people of have been killed in each conflict, rather than how many people in each state have been killed by conflict. Do we even have sufficent data to determine how many people have died in each country due to conflict? Some conflicts like the Insurgency in the Magreb we have practically no casualty data on for the entire conflict let alone each individual state (ie: Tunisia, Algeria, Mali, Niger, ect).XavierGreen (talk) 15:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
For the whole Africa, we have continuously updated data for each country by ACLED. For the Boko Haram insurgency and the Maghreb insurgency, you find the precise numbers for each State specified in the footnotes. Nykterinos (talk) 22:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

South-North Korea

The conflict seems to have new victims. Could you check and re-add it if necessary? Wykx (talk) 18:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but according to this, there are no fatalities.GreyShark (dibra) 13:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
ok thanks! Wykx (talk) 18:21, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
There were also two brief firefights last year, but they produced no reported casualties.XavierGreen (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Is this about ignoring ROKMC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeje1991 (talk • contribs) 03:50, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Moro conflict in Sabah

Was added with no prior discussion by user:Shhhhwwww!!. Can somebody check the sources and the context? Is is substantially different from the Moro insurgency in the Philippines?GreyShark (dibra) 20:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Abu Sayaf occasionally will launch attacks in Sabah, mostly related to kidnapping attempts. But these are a direct part of the insurgency in the Philippines. I am unaware of any ongoing insurgency in Sabah since the Sultanate of Sulu Kiramist factions invasion was repelled in 2013. There was one shootout that killed two militants on October 30, 2014, but its unclear to me if they were from the same faction or indeed any organized faction at all. I would say the evidence is currently against inclusion given that there seems to be no organized conflict ongoing.XavierGreen (talk) 23:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Burundi conflict

Seems that 2015 Burundi unrest is eligible for inclusion - casualties top 100 (77 killed by June 19, 3 killed on June 28th, 6 killed on early July, 3 political murders on July 24th 1 political murder - Aug 2nd, 5 gov-t officials killed Aug 5th, 1 political murder - Aug 15th, 4 killed in clashes Aug 19th) and armed clashes with the opposition occur every once and a while. Adding it.GreyShark (dibra) 13:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Is the armed opposition to the state organized? Or is it merely mob violance / independent actors or one way conflict with the state suppressing unarmed protesters violently.XavierGreen (talk) 21:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, certainly organized. I cannot prove that all the political killings were indeed politically-motivated and not crime, but the general perception is that there is Pierre Nkurunziza's government and there is opposition, with NFL likely being involved. To prove my point, i want to show this article Uganda's president starts mediation role in Burundi unrest and claim logically that mediation is not possible if there are no organized opponents (quote "Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni met with representatives of the Burundi government and opposition leaders in the nation's capital, Bujumbura, late Tuesday. The talks are being attended by Agathon Rwasa, the most prominent opposition leader in Burundi.").GreyShark (dibra) 16:42, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
I tried an updated compilation of ACLED data. There has been 42 rioters and 44 military mutineers killed by police and army as well as 83 (mostly) political victims of 'unidentified' armed groups. The unrest has reached now 169 casualties. Even if you exclude rioters I also believe we are now above 100. The link to 2015 Burundian unrest seems appropriate. Wykx (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Turkey-PKK conflict might become a major conflict

Recent report says the number of killed in the conflict tops 959 since July 20, with 9 additional victims from a more quiet phase between January to mid-July. With such rate, we will see this conflict becoming a major one (above 1000 killed per year) within days.GreyShark (dibra) 15:26, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I've coloured Turkey orange now that the conflict has crossed the 100 fatalities threshold in south-eastern Turkey. Nykterinos (talk) 11:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
The conflict has just surpassed 1000 fatalities: 918 Kurds, 60 Turks, another 15 civilians (Turks & Kurds) + 7 tonight; 9 more had been killed prior to July escalation.GreyShark (dibra) 04:31, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I see you've moved the conflict to the "more than 1,000 fatalities" section, but we usually use the lower estimate of fatalities to classify a conflict (see, for example, South Sudan, which provoked more than 10,000 deaths last year according to the higher estimate). Anyway, thanks for including the claims of both parties to the conflict: the Turkish government figure for PKK fatalities seems very high, and could be inflated for obvious reasons. Nykterinos (talk) 22:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks - in my experience we actually use the upper threshold. I agree this is something to discuss - because often the numbers differ greatly.GreyShark (dibra) 21:16, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Right now, the lower estimate is being used for South Sudan (6,383-40,000+ in 2014) and is always used as sortable number. Since the sorting feature of the table orders conflicts on the basis of the lower estimate of fatalities, it would be logic, in my opinion, to classify them on the basis of the lower estimate, too. Nykterinos (talk) 09:05, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I also favor the lower estimate. It happens that the lower estimate is not really accurate (the Libya body count was factually underestimated) and in that case it shouldn't be mentioned. Wykx (talk) 09:10, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wykx and Nykterinos: i started discussion below.GreyShark (dibra) 21:11, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Turkey should be red. Turkey had more than 1000 fatalities due to Turkey-PKK conflict this year.SVG file needs editing.Kgkadd (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kgkadd (talk • contribs) 11:04, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment - @Wykx: - updated fatalities of Turkey-PKK conflict due to new releases from Turkey and PKK: we are certainly above 1,000 in both versions now.GreyShark (dibra) 18:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - @Wykx: i saw your last update, which included downgrading the conflict and though we are friends, i have some criticism: apparently you made a typical statistic evaluation mistake by counting Cmin=Amin+Bmin; Cmax=Amax+Bmax (mixing up Turkish and PKK evaluations). The lowest estimate cannot be the low estimate of Turks plus the low estimate of PKK, because the combined numbers are quite similar: PKK claim about 1,000 killed not including civilians, whereas Turks claim ~2,000 dead total - the total is hence similar, but the composition rebels/military/civilians is varying. There was a similar case with Israel-Gaza conflict, when Israel and Hamas claimed different militant/civilian ratios, but the totals were quite similar. Therefore, we cannot say that the minimal casualty estimate is 130+100+26=256, but the minimum of totals from Turkish side or PKK (plus civilians counted by HDP, since PKK don't publish civilian deaths) side - min(2165,1147).GreyShark (dibra) 19:09, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
In this conflict each party seems very prompt to claim the attacks done by the other side. Maybe it is more true for the civilians deathtoll than for the militants where it would mean recognizing that they are loosing forces. Anadolu agency is an pro-Turkish regime newsagency and its latest figures [15] mentions "only" 260 PKK rebels killed, which is widely under the government claims. That's why I tend to disagree with figures over 1000. I think now we can consider reasonably 9 (before 20 July) + 260 PKK rebels + 130 security forces + 35 civilians (Anadolu agency for those figures) + 95 civilians today = 529 in total Wykx (talk) 23:21, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
@Wykx: First of all, thank you for the reply and good faith, i really think you are a great editor. Regarding your source on 260 PKK casualties [16] - it is outdated (it is from August 2nd), so it makes sense that there were 260 PKK killed in the first 9 days of strikes, but it is not relevant now. You can check the date of your source yourself.GreyShark (dibra) 06:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
@Greyshark09: Ok point taken. I hope independant sources such as NGOs will help in the future to refine figures for that conflict. And don't hesitate to continue to challenge, it is sometimes difficult to tackle the huge volume of contradictory informations! Wykx (talk) 11:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
@Wykx: Thanks for your feedback and sure we need more independent sources to confirm, but the current ones are also giving a reasonable, though not complete, picture. My respects to you.GreyShark (dibra) 14:18, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - by the way, do we include the recent Ankara bombing in the PKK rebellion deathtoll ? I have mixed feelings about this - on one hand it was related with the conflict; on another it was likely done by a third party (ISIL sympathizers). Wdyt?GreyShark (dibra) 17:27, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
@Greyshark09: The 2015 Suruç bombing has got the same status and was included because it triggered the conflict even if maybe driven by a third party. It may happen that this new bombings will have impact in the Turkey-PKK conflict anyway and are clearly a manipulation of this conflict. Wykx (talk) 18:01, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
So far i have not included the Suruc bombing and the Ankara bombing casualties within the PKK rebellion death toll (neither here nor at the 2015 PKK rebellion page).GreyShark (dibra) 18:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
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