Search Results

Overview Sandworm (also known as VooDoo Bear, Telebots, IRIDIUM, Seashell Blizzard and Iron Viking) is the name given to Russia’s GRU intelligence unit, Military Unit 74455, specialising in cyber attacks and espionage. Its exact founding date is unknown, however, it is believed to have been commissioned in the 2000s and operated unknown to the outside world until its discovery in 2015. As a military unit which falls under the direction of Russia’’s Ministry of the Interior, it carries out operations based on the Russian Federation’s military and political objectives. Many of its operations have been carried out against Ukraine. History The independent American intelligence corporation iSight made the breakthrough responsible for unearthing Sandworm in 2015. It uncovered a “zero-day” (a hole in an organisation’s cyber security they are unaware of and therefore, have zero days to respond to in case of an attack) in a PowerPoint presentation on key figures in the pro-Russian breakaway areas of Ukraine. With PowerPoint’s large global user base, the spyware could easily be spread across multiple continents, to thousands of users, and given the content of what it was attached to, to high-profile users. Comparing the code it unearthed to other samples in its database, iSight uncovered multiple similar strands that had been in use on different platforms since the mid-2000s. (1) The malware had the name arrakis02 - a reference to the desert planet setting of the science fiction series Dune. There were other references to Dune too - leading iSight to name it after the characteristic Sandworms which roam beneath the planet and are used by the series’ protagonists in its battle against their enemies. The combination of its nickname and its series of daring cyber attacks led to the group gaining notoriety quickly after its discovery. (2) Sandworm had been responsible for multiple cyber attacks in different countries. It successfully knocked out Ukraine’s power grid twice, in 2015 and 2016. Evidence suggests it has targeted European elections, including French President Emmanual Macron’s party. Its wide range of targets has also included the Winter Olympics and civilian and government infrastructure in the United Kingdom and the United States. (3) While its exact founding date is unknown, it is blamed for cyberattacks during Georgia’s 2008 election and was named responsible for operations against American and European infrastructure in 2023. It is likely that the group is still active and operating. (4) Ideology According to Western intelligence and the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, Sandworm operates in accordance with the Russian state’s geopolitical objectives, which is to be expected if it operates under the GRU’s command. They cite its particular focus on Ukrainian targets and Western political figures as evidence of this claim. (5) Capabilities No other attack demonstrates the level of damage Sandworm is capable of than its 2017 NotPetya cyberattack. Launched on the eve of Ukraine’s Constitution Day, the Notpetya malware targeted several industries across Ukraine and Europe. Ukrainian banks, communications, television, metro, and electric companies across the public and private sectors were targeted and brought down. Several other companies under European or American ownership were also targeted. The estimated cost of the cyberattack was $10 billion. (6) Approach to Resistance The group uses both malware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to target its opponents. Sandworm used “Black Energy” malware to disable the Ukrainian power grid. Accessing corporate networks through phishing emails containing Black Energy, the group remotely turned off multiple power substations across the country. Simultaneously, they bombarded tech support centers with DDoS attacks, which flooded the recipient network with repeated requests causing access to them to slow dramatically. (7) Sandworm continues to target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure using hardware. This has become especially important during its war with Ukraine. In 2023, western intelligence uncovered Sandworm-linked malware that attempted to target Android devices that would scan for pertinent information to extract. The hackers attempted to extract financial information, communications, media, and VPN data. (8) International Relations Other countries, particularly the United States, view Sandworm as a profound threat. Following cyberattacks that took place near the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US offered $10 million for any info that might help identify or track down six members its government had indicted for their role in carrying out cyber attacks. The six targeted members, Artem Ochichenko, Anatoliy Kovalev, Petr Pliskin, Yuriy Andrienko, Sergey Detistov, and Pavel Frolov, are yet to be caught. (9) Currently, no country apart from the United States is offering an award to help track down the hackers. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada have contributed efforts to help track the group’s movements and uncover its malware. While Western powers still view China as the biggest cybersecurity threat, Sandworm ensures that they must also be cautiously aware of Russia.

Insurgency Overview The Base is a multinational far-right white supremacist militant group. It was founded in 2018 by Rinaldo Nazzaro in the United States. Since then, it has spread to several other countries, some of which have designated it as a terrorist group (1). The organization trains its members in combat and survival skills. Its goal is to create a worldwide network of cells regularly carrying out terrorist attacks in order to weaken governments and create white ethnostates in their wake (2). It is organized into small cells that train and recruit new members. Thus far, its plans have been largely unsuccessful and several members have been arrested and prosecuted for their actions. Its most notable actions have been instances of vandalism and arson, despite talk of extreme violence. History and Foundations Rinaldo Nazzaro grew up in New Jersey, attending Catholic schools and joining the Democratic Socialists of America in his college years. After graduating, he worked in security. He was an FBI analyst and a Pentagon contractor. In 2002, he founded Omega Solutions International, a security consulting firm (2). He claimed that he did tours as a contractor in Afghanistan and Iraq (3). Nazzaro, who has also gone by Roman Wolf and Norman Spear online, started posting far-right content online in 2016. The next year, he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he allegedly continues to run The Base. Finally, in 2018 he formally launched The Base and purchased off-the-grid land in Washington State to operate a “hate camp” (2). He alleged that he was inspired to start the group when he had plans to meet Harold Covington, a prominent American white nationalist, but he did not show up. Nazzaro said he got in touch with Covington’s people, who then found him dead in his home (3). Two synagogues were vandalized in 2019 by members of The Base. They spray painted swastikas and the organization’s logos on the buildings in Racine, Wisconsin and Hancock, Michigan. David Tobin, the leader of the group’s “Great Lakes Cell,” admitted to prosecutors that he had organized the vandalisms, which he dubbed “Operation Kristallnacht” after the 1938 Nazi pogrom (4). The Base hosted a training camp in October 2019 in rural Georgia where, besides regular training drills and the creation of propaganda to be posted online, they stole a ram from a nearby farm, proceeding to decapitate and drink the blood of the animal in a ritual sacrifice. Some members took LSD during the sacrifice. One of the camp’s attendees was an undercover FBI agent (3). Another was Patrik Jordan Mathews, a Canadian Army Reservist who had fled his home country in 2019 after a journalist from the Winnipeg Free Press had infiltrated the group and exposed Mathews for running a cell from the province of Manitoba (5)(6). In December 2019, two members of The Base were arrested by the FBI after shining lights on and taking pictures of a home they thought belonged to Daniel Harper. Harper is a host of I Don’t Speak German, a podcast tracking far-right activity that has covered The Base. However, it was in fact not his house. They posted the photos on the group’s Telegram channel. Prosecutors said that one of the members involved in the incident, Justen Watkins, also had run a training camp for the organization and planned to create a fortified compound for future training exercises (7). Meanwhile, in the south of Sweden, a mink farm was the victim of an arson attack allegedly carried out by a self-proclaimed eco-fascist cell of The Base. An iFunny account linked to a member of the group posted videos of the attack. Another video posted from the account depicts the member making an explosive recipe popularized by ISIS (8). On January 16th, 2020, six members of the group were arrested in the US. Three of them were surveilled by the FBI as they planned to attack Lobby Day, a gun rights protest organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League. They believed that, given that the state government had recently become controlled by Democrats, the protest would trigger the collapse of the US government, which members of The Base refer to as the “Boogaloo.” The members planned to derail trains, shut down highways, destroy other critical infrastructure, and attack federal buildings and employees (5). One of the members arrested was Patrik Jordan Mathews. Before Canadian authorities raided his home, he had already made his way to the United States with the help of Brian Lemley and William Bilbrough, the other two men arrested. He attended the October 2019 camp in Georgia with Bilbrough and Lemley. Mathews and Lemley were sentenced to nine years in prison for their roles in the plot, while Bilbrough got five years (6). The three others were arrested in Georgia for planning to murder a couple they thought to be antifascists (9). Shortly after the arrests, the previously anonymous Nazzaro was exposed by The Guardian as the leader of The Base, leading to concerns within the group that he was a Russian or American government asset (10). The group’s social media accounts and chat rooms were shut down, but not before a disgruntled member got their hands on the login information and posted memes making fun of Nazzaro on the accounts. The organization has since gone back underground (3). Nazzaro did an interview in 2020 broadcasted on Russian state television, where he claimed that The Base was acting in “self-defense” while inside a holocaust museum (11). Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all designated The Base as a terrorist group in 2021 after the gang’s profile had risen in the previous years. New Zealand did so in 2022 (12). Objectives and Ideology The Base’s members vary ideologically. Neo-Nazis, eco-fascists, regular white nationalists, and all kinds of far-right beliefs fall under the group’s umbrella. Some members have even been associated with the Order of Nine Angles, a group of esoteric fascist Satanists whose members have been responsible for many acts of terrorism, rape, and pedophilia (13). What unites the group is the belief that electoral politics are futile in achieving its goals, so instead it hopes to bring about a race war that it believes to be inevitable. The organization encourages its members to engage in lone-wolf attacks to do so. It believes that over a period of time, the system could not withstand consistent attacks and would eventually crumble, creating the conditions for the race war and the creation of white ethnostates (5). The Base can be classified as an accelerationist group, as it seeks to use terrorism to actively create the conditions that it believes to be necessary in order to achieve its objectives. It does not believe that the current system will deteriorate into fascism. Instead, its members must be ready to fight government forces once they destabilize the system to establish new, separatist ethnostates (2). Nazzaro has said that he was inspired by the Northwest Territorial Imperative, a plan pioneered by Harold Covington and endorsed by several American white supremacist groups to migrate to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and secede from the country, establishing a white ethnostate. Copies of Siege, a white supremacist newsletter that encourages acts of lone-wolf terrorism, have been found at member’s residences. Siege’s author, James Mason, is a prominent American neo-Nazi affiliated with several far-right terrorist groups, most recently the Atomwaffen Division (3). Capabilities The Base specifically targets white teenagers and young adults who are vulnerable to radicalization when recruiting, but it also recruits former military and law enforcement personnel for their expertise. Its cells are very small, with only two or three members (14). This shows that it is concerned not with the quantity, but the quality of its members. It is not interested in developing a mass movement, hence its secretive practices and small size. It has cells across North America and Europe, as well as in other predominantly white countries such as Australia and South Africa. However, its stronghold is in the United States, where it started (1). These cells are largely autonomous and despite being the group’s founder, Nazarro exercises little organizational control over their actions. He instead focuses on spreading The Base’s message while recruiting and vetting prospective members (2). Approach to Resistance The Base finds recruits online and through poster campaigns. Prospective members are interviewed by Nazzaro and other senior members to determine if they are fit for the group. In these screening calls, they are asked about their ethnicity, ideology, background, combat and survival experience, and what white supremacist books they have read, such as Mein Kampf. Much of the group’s communications happen online through encrypted apps to conceal the identity of its members (1). The organization also publishes online propaganda, depicting its members during training exercises and featuring white supremacist symbols such as skull masks. In these photos and videos, members are seen wearing surplus military gear and brandishing the Sieg Heil salute (14). Along with other far-right groups, The Base has been known to use iFunny, a meme website popular with teenagers, for propaganda and recruitment purposes (3). The group meets in rural areas for training camps that consist of firearms and survival skill exercises. Although the only successful actions it has carried out so far are instances of vandalism, arson, and harassment, its members have attempted to plan large-scale attacks on infrastructure as well as racial minorities, government employees, and other perceived enemies. This was the case in the 2020 Lobby Day plot, where Patrik Jordan Mathews and Brian Lemley discussed attacking police officers and antifascist activists as well as critical infrastructure in an attempt to bring about the fall of the US government (5). Relations and Alliances The Base emerged from Iron March, a now-defunct online forum where several fascist groups were formed (13). One of these groups, the Atomwaffen Division, has shared several members with The Base, including Patrik Jordan Mathews. The Atomwaffen Division is a neo-Nazi terrorist organization with a similar structure, objectives, and ideology to The Base (5). Although the group predates Iron March, the Order of Nine Angles maintained a large presence on the forum (13). It not only heavily influenced The Base and the Atomwaffen Division, but the groups also have had common members. One of the individuals arrested in 2020 for plotting to murder an antifascist couple, Luke Austin Lane, was a member of the Order who led a particularly extreme cell of The Base in Georgia. Lane also attended the October 2019 camp and participated in the ritual sacrifice (3). One of the group’s main adversaries are antifascist activists. Members have frequently spoken about targeting them for violence and, on multiple occasions, have gone through with their claims, as was the case in Watkins and Lane’s plots (3)(7). The organization has a mixed relationship with law enforcement and military personnel. While it sees them as ideal recruits, ultimately they are perceived as agents of the system and will thus need to be defeated in a time of crisis. Lemley and Mathews discussed attacking police officers and stealing their equipment before their arrest (5). Additional Resources

Insurgency Overview The North Korean People’s Liberation Front (NKPLF) is a Seoul-based paramilitary organisation founded in 2010 by defectors of the North Korean Army. It plans to overthrow the North Korean regime and in the event of an uprising, they state to be prepared to provide armed support. As of now, their activities are rather limited to information warfare, distributing censored materials into North Korea, as well as smuggling information out of the country. The NKPLF often works with other defector groups and organisations with the common goal of inducing a regime change in the country. History & Foundations The North Korean People’s Liberation Front was founded on 9 September 2010 by a variety of former members of the Korean People’s Army [1]. The group’s headquarters are in Seoul, and according to descriptions, it’s a nondescript office with the NKPLF’s logo on the wall, a map of Korea with a gunsight targeting Pyongyang, and several pairs of combat boots [2]. Among the NKPLF’s members, there are officers and special forces soldiers, as well as specialists in propaganda and cyberwarfare. They are not armed, although they often dress in camouflage uniforms, with sunglasses and berets, and carry plastic weapons [3]. The number of members in the organisation is unclear, as it ranges considerably depending on the source of the data. While the group seemed to be composed of around 100 men in September 2010 [4], they allegedly reached 330 members in December of the same year [5]. Yet, five years later, some reports describe the NKPLF as consisting of less than a dozen people [6]. Nonetheless, it is relevant to take into consideration that tens of thousands of North Korean defectors live in South Korea and many of them live in secret, under the protection of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of South Korea. While some members of the North Korean People’s Liberation Front use pseudonyms for security reasons, others are, to a certain degree, well-known. However, it is unclear who is actually in charge of leading the group, as various sources identify different leaders. The profiles of the known members provide a further understanding of the composition of the group. Choi Jung-hoon is a commander of the North Korean People’s Liberation Front [7]. He studied political science in North Korea and claims to still have contacts with people working in North Korean security, military, and police. Additionally, he was an army officer in the cyber hacking unit for almost 20 years before leaving in 2006 [8]. In 2000, his brother was executed for anti-regime activities [9]. In 2006, Choi decided to flee the country, motivated by an imminent order of execution issued by North Korean authorities. The decree came after Choi was caught aiding a South Korean family in locating a man who had been abducted and taken to North Korea and helping him escape to China, in exchange for a reward of $10,000. Following the man's escape, his family held a press conference, which exposed Choi’s actions. In 2014, he survived an assassination attempt at the hands of a female agent impersonating a defector in South Korea [10]. He is said to head the North Korean People’s Liberation Front [11]. Jang Se-yul was formerly a hacker for the “automisation unit” in the North Korean army, where he was in charge of digitalizing operational strategies and collecting intelligence on the enemy’s tactics [12]. He graduated from Mirim University, a technology college where he specialised in command automisation. He defected in 2008 and is also reported to supposedly lead the NKPLF [13]. Kim Seong-min was born in 1962 and grew up and studied in Pyongyang. He served in the military as a propaganda specialist for 10 years and fled to China in 1997. He was inspired by Hwang Jang-yop, who, although in a position of senior leadership, defected that same year. After 2 years, Kim Seong-min arrived in Seoul, and in 2004 he established the Free North Korea Radio (FNKR) intending to enable North Koreans to listen to messages of freedom. In 2015, he was following a PhD programme in Seoul [14]. In a series of three videos on YouTube showing a press conference held in 2010 by the North Korean People’s Liberation Front, Kim Seong-min appears as the director of the group [15] [16] [17]. Therefore, there seems to be visual evidence that, as of December 2010, he was the chairman of the NKPLF [18]. Moreover, as director of the Free North Korea Radio, he enabled the formation of a close connection between the two organisations. A year after its formation, the NKPLF had already established 6 networks within North Korea [19]. Such networks, of which they claim to be developing more, are composed of active duty and retired military members, as well as civilian people who share an anti-regime standpoint. Objectives & Ideology The NKPLF's main objective is to intervene in the case of an uprising against the regime in North Korea. They prepare precisely for the goal of crossing the border and taking up arms against the government. Their ultimate aim is to unify the Korean peninsula [20]. The main rationale behind their fight and struggle is helping those who were not able to flee, by supporting families still living in North Korea and liberating prisoners from camps [21]. To be part of the NKPLF and actively try to overthrow the regime is perceived by its members as their duty and mission as defectors [22]. In order to achieve their goals, they first intend to forcibly remove the Kim dynasty. As part of their training, a group of 20 members of the North Korean People’s Liberation Army trained on skis in the Gangwon-do mountains in order to be physically prepared for their actions. The men were led by the commander Jung Hoon-choi, who perceived this team-building activity also as somewhat relieving for those who experienced poverty and brutality in North Korea [23]. Additionally, the NKPLF had a plan, to be carried out with the group called “Group to Bring Down the Statue of Kim Il Sung”, precisely to bring down a statue of Kim Il Sung in North Korea by activating the network between the South and the North [24]. On other occasions they have manifested the ultimate aim of their training: killing the supreme leader [25]. At the time when Kim Jong-il was in power, such intention was apparent during a rally where members of the NKPLF, wearing camouflage clothes and brandishing plastic weapons, pretended to shoot a man, dressed in a grey jumpsuit and tied to a post, who was wearing a mask of the leader [26]. Regardless of the threats and dangers related to defecting from North Korea, the dissidents of the NKPLF understand that they have to continue with their actions if they seek to bring positive change to their country of origin. They perceive actively operating and organising against the Kim regime as the only way to help their compatriots [27]. As such, the NKPLF, like many other groups of defectors, is constantly under the threat of violence from the North Korean regime. For this reason, many people involved in the organisation live under protection. Nonetheless, they carry out information operations, and activism, aimed at inducing the North Korean population to undergo a process of critical revision and realisation of the reality of the regime. The group has a strong focus on information and psychological warfare, with the aim of changing the mindset of the North Korean army [28]. One of their goals is to show media and information that is strictly unavailable to people living in North Korea. For instance, they have smuggled Chinese devices that play DVDs and content on memory sticks. Moreover, in 2014 they managed to send 6000 laptops to North Korea, and in 2015 they sent 800 copies of the movie “The Interview”. In this way, they could enable at least some North Korean residents to be able to access such media without being monitored [29]. A crucial objective of the group, and perhaps their greatest capability, is to spread truthful knowledge about the situation in North Korea and its regime. The ultimate goal of this is to change the beliefs of North Koreans [30]. For this purpose, they send anti-regime leaflets into the country and broadcast radio programs. They want to take advantage of the fact that military and police personnel in North Korea have access to phones, radios, and TVs. The group of defectors sees them as the section of the population who, once properly informed through their means of information warfare and propaganda, can be the first to turn against the regime [31]. On the other hand, they emphasize the necessity of South Korea to build and increase capabilities to be prepared and effective in the case of a confrontation against North Korea [32]. The North Korean People’s Liberation Front seems to have the intention to obtain a more recognised legitimate status in South Korea. In fact, they have been asking the South Korean government to form their own division in the special forces to help fight against North Korea [33]. Moreover, after years of stating their intention to form a political party, the NKPLF might have found its way into South Korean politics. Kim Seong-min, who has proven to be a key member of the group and able to establish a network of connections between the NKPLF and other organisations, such as the Free North Korea Radio, has been elected co-leader of the Unification Party of North and South Koreas. The political party was established in 2020 by North Korean defectors [34], and although there is no explicitly mentioned relation between the party and the North Korean People’s Liberation Front, the prominent role taken by Kim seems to hint at a possible connection between the two. However, their objectives, according to some analysts such as Professor Namkung Young [35], seem largely unlikely to materialise. Commander Choi Jung-hoon actually admits that the goal of overthrowing the dictatorial government is rather a hope than a concrete possibility [36]. International Relations & Alliances The group claims to be in contact with discontent officers of the Korean People’s Army, as well as with members of the police [42]. Besides their obvious enemy, the North Korean government, they also clash with leftist organisations and groups in South Korea that are in favour of the Kim regime [43]. Thus, the NKPLF organises protests against these groups. The NKPLF is connected with and supports the actions of other similar groups. Several defector groups share comparatively similar backgrounds, objectives, needs and struggles. Therefore, a collaboration between these organisations works towards the creation of a stronger network that increases the potential to reach the common goal of influencing the North Korean population and ultimately overthrowing the regime. Some of such groups mentioned by Kim Seong-min are: Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), North Korean Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS), and the Committee for the Democratization of North Korea [44]. Additionally, the NKPLF has sought a closer connection with the South Korean authorities. However, a formal relationship between the two, especially military cooperation, bears the risk of hindering the current situation between the South Korean government and North Korea [45]. Furthermore, some analysts have proposed a potential threat to be taken into consideration: the possibility of some defectors being in fact spies. This seems to be one of the reasons for the reluctance of the South Korean military to allow the members of the North Korean People’s Liberation Front to serve in the event of a conflict [46]. Perhaps the closest ally and collaborator of the North Korean People’s Liberation Front is the Free North Korea Radio, which broadcasts anti-regime messages into the country [47]. Kim Seong-min is in fact not only a commander of the NKPLF, but also the director of the radio [48]. Other people involved in the Free North Korea Radio seem to be related to the NKPLF. For instance, a broadcaster on the radio served food to the members of the group during the snow training exercise aforementioned, highlighting the close connection between the two [49].

Insurgency Overview The Five Percent Nation, also known as the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE), the Five Percenters, or simply as the Nation, is an American Black nationalist group. The Five Percenters formed when their founder, Clarence 13X, split from the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1964 to create a new group. Clarence’s teachings struck a chord with disenfranchised Black youth in New York City where he began to develop a following. The group synthesizes Black nationalism, numerology, and a heterodox form of Islam in its teachings. Since Clarence was murdered in 1969, the Five Percenters have continued without a singular leader. Much of the Nation’s prominence has come due to its affiliation with hip-hop, as it influenced the ideology of many early rappers and continues to be a relevant force in hip-hop culture today (1). History & Foundations Clarence 13X, born Clarence Edward Smith, grew up in Virginia during the Jim Crow era. As a teenager, he moved to Harlem, New York City with his mother (1). He was one of six million African Americans who moved from the Southern states to large Northern cities, like New York, between 1910 and 1970, a period known as the Great Migration. Fleeing intense racism and poverty in the South, they were able to establish predominantly Black communities, like in Harlem, in the North. However, upon coming North they encountered racial tensions, ghettoization, and disenfranchisement (2). Clarence’s story is typical of many members of the Nation of Islam, including Malcolm X (3). Clarence served in the Korean War between 1952 and 1954. When he arrived back in the United States, his wife had begun to follow the NOI under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad. He joined Mosque No. 7, where Malcolm X was then a minister (future NOI leader Louis Farrakhan also attended this mosque at the time), and changed his name to Clarence 13X just like other NOI members. Clarence studied the NOI’s doctrine and rose up the ranks. He joined the NOI’s security apparatus, the Fruit of Islam (FOI), where he taught martial arts skills he learned during his time in the military (1). He was also known as a skilled orator and for these reasons, he caught the attention of Malcolm X (4). During the early 1960s as Clarence was gaining a name for himself within the NOI, there was much internal strife within the organization. Malcolm X began to speak out against the hypocrisy of Elijah Muhammad and problems with the NOI’s doctrine. He eventually left the organization in 1964 and was killed by three NOI members a year later (3). Clarence had his own issues with the NOI. He openly criticized the organization’s leadership, doubted founder Wallace Fard Muhammad’s divinity due to his white ancestry, and ignored their rules to use drugs, drink, and gamble. He was disciplined by the NOI several times before leaving in 1963. It is debated whether he was kicked out or left on his own accord. Clarence was followed by his friends, John 37X and James 109X, who together started a new group that became the Nation of Gods and Earths. He left his wife, who stayed in the NOI (1). Clarence and his followers began to create a new doctrine based on NOI teachings, doing away with their obscure beliefs and strict rules around personal conduct. The group changed their names yet again, and Clarence began going by Allah the Father, John by Abu Shahid, and James by Justice. They soon gained a following amongst disenfranchised Black youth in Harlem, who were surrounded by poverty, crime, and gangs. In the early days, Clarence gathered his followers on street corners to spread his message. Clarence was shot twice on December 9th, 1964 in Harlem. He survived the shooting, claiming that he had died and came back to life. The assailant was never found and Clarence demanded his followers to not take revenge (1). The shooting increased the Five Percenters’ profile in the media and amongst law enforcement (5). After Malcolm X was killed in 1965, Clarence and several followers visited Mosque No. 7, where they were made to leave by police. The group got into an altercation with police and were eventually arrested. Clarence was charged for assault and drug possession, as he had marijuauna on him at the time of the arrest. While awaiting trial, he was sent for a psychological assessment. He was ruled unfit for trial and sent to a mental asylum where doctors determined Clarence had symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and delusions of grandeur. He continued to proselytize and instruct his followers from the hospital. He was released in 1967 (1). As the group began to gain traction, the FBI began to surveil them, opening up a file on the group in 1965 under the pretense that the Five Percenters were a gang (6). Due to the newfound attention the Five Percenters had been receiving from law enforcement and the high racial tensions in the city at the time, then-New York Mayor John Lindsay sent a representative to meet with Clarence. Clarence made a positive impression and convinced the mayor’s office that he was a nonviolent community leader, leading to a relationship with the city. Clarence met with Mayor Lindsay and other city officials who helped him run youth programs and open up a school in 1967. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Five Percenters marched with Lindsay through Harlem to calm racial tensions (1). On June 12th, 1969, Clarence was on his way home from the Five Percenters’ school when he was shot and killed by three individuals. Mayor Lindsay visited the school the next day. As with Clarence’s previous shooting, it is unknown who was responsible. The NOI and FBI have been accused of killing Clarence. Some have also suggested Clarence was killed over gambling debts, extortion, or a failed robbery. After Clarence’s death, there was no clear successor to the NGE’s leadership and the group’s membership fell. This led to tensions and infighting within the group, as without Clarence’s guidance and structure the NGE’s gang affiliations rose. The group became divided between those who saw the NGE’s message as a positive and uplifting force and those who engaged in criminal activity. For instance, in New Jersey violence broke out between Five Percenters over these tensions (1). In the 1970s, the NGE reemerged with new leadership and its membership bounced back (1). However, there was no single leader of the group, reflecting the NGE’s belief that God is within every Black person as opposed to being a particular figure (7). At this time, hip-hop was developing in New York and many Five Percenters ran in the same crowds as rappers due to their socioeconomic and cultural positions. Hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc began hosting parties out of his Bronx apartment in the early 70s, birthing the genre in the process. At the same time, he befriended a group of Five Percenters and invited them to his parties, where they quelled tensions between rival gangs present. As hip-hop became more popular throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Five Percenters’ beliefs and jargon spread with it. One of the groups that utilized Five Percenter teachings in hip-hop was Wu-Tang Clan, whose members were active Five Percenters at the time of the release of their early classic albums such as Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (5). The crack epidemic in the 1980s and 90s saw another blow to the NGE. The NGE struggled with widespread crack use within its ranks and membership once again declined. This led to some elders taking a harder stance against drugs. During the height of the epidemic, a gang of Five Percenters known as the Supreme Team led by Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff controlled the crack trade in Jamaica, Queens. The group was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a day and was responsible for many murders. Members would use the NGE’s alphabetical and mathematical systems, known as the Supreme Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics, to communicate in code with one another. The gang was allegedly behind an infamous incident in 2000 when rapper 50 Cent was shot nine times, and survived, after he mentioned the gang in the lyrics of his song “Ghetto Qu’ran (Forgive Me)”. McGriff was connected with the record label Murder Inc. and allegedly laundered money through the label, who attempted to blacklist 50 Cent from the music industry (1). In 2007, McGriff was charged and sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking and murder (8). The NGE remains active today. In the 2000s, a series of states overturned bans on Five Percenters practicing in prisons (7). The school founded by Clarence 13X remains open and there are now many pages on social media sharing Five Percenter teachings. In 2019, the corner by the school was officially co-named Allah and Justice Square by the City of New York (9). Objectives & Ideology Much of the Five Percenters’ belief system is similar to that of the Nation of Islam, however there are some key differences. The Five Percenters believe that Black people are Gods and the original people of the earth. As opposed to the Nation of Islam who believe that its founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad, was the reincarnation of Allah, the Five Percenters believe that God is within Black people (10). The “five percent” refers to the NGE’s belief that 85% of the world’s population lives in ignorance to the truth, 10% are the elite who control the world, and the 5%, the NGE, are aware of the truth and must spread it to others (11). Alternatively, Clarence 13X has stated that the Five Percenters are the 5% of the NOI that knows the truth (1). Borrowing from NOI doctrine, Five Percenters teach that Black people and all other races originate from the planet’s first inhabitants, the Tribe of Shabazz, while white people, who are seen as devils, were created by an evil scientist known as Yakub 6,000 years ago (10). Whites are said to be “devils” in Five Percenter teachings, however many members do not take this literally. The biggest difference between the Five Percenters and the NOI’s ideologies are their respective stance on practices like drug use, gambling, and dress. Whereas the NOI prohibits such activities and has a strict dress code, Five Percenters are not under such restrictions. Clarence, who was known to regularly smoke marijuauna, allowed drinking and drug use but discouraged his members from using harder drugs, like heroin, or developing addictions (1). These positions were influenced by Clarence’s own habits as well as the NOI’s alienation of poor Black youth with its conservative stances (5). Five Percenters do not eat pork or seafood and some practice vegetarianism and veganism. Later in his life, Clarence took on more conservative positions, such as support for American military presence in Vietnam, partially in an attempt to legitimize the NGE in the eyes of institutions and authorities. Despite the NGE’s homophobic stances which have led to gay members being exiled, many Five Percenter rappers, such as Wu-Tang Clan, have participated in AIDS benefits sponsored by LGBTQ rights organizations (1). Clarence developed numerological and alphabetical systems known as Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet. Letters and numbers are assigned particular meanings; 1 means Knowledge and A means Allah. Five Percenters use backronyms to decipher secret meanings in words. For example, Allah is said to stand for arm, leg, leg, arm, head, representing that God is personified in Black people (5). The NGE believes that both men and women are divine, but in different ways. It is believed that God is within every Black man, while earth is in every woman, hence the Nation of Gods and Earths. Men and women serve different social roles in the NGE’s teachings, resulting in accusations of misogyny. However, men and women are, in theory, equally as devine. The importance of family is emphasized in the NGE’s teachings. One of its tenets states that “the unified Black family is the vital building block of the Nation,” however the NGE permits polygamy (1). The nature of the NGE has been debated. While some critics call the NGE a Black supremacist group, Clarence 13X claimed it was neither “anti-white nor pro-black” and the NGE has had white members, including a young man Clarence converted during his time in a mental hospital and Michael Muhammad Knight, who went on to write extensively about the group (1). The NGE is not necessarily religious in the sense that it does not promote the worship of a particular deity or prophet. Clarence 13X is seen as the group’s leader and he is not more or less divine than any other member. One of the NGE’s tenets states that “Islam is a natural way of life, not a religion” and its members do not consider themselves to be Mulsims, unlike the NOI. The group also does not consider itself to be a formal organization, as its structure is loose (11). The NGE’s practices have been compared to Gnosticism and Sufism (12). Capabilities It is unclear how many Five Percenters there are today, but during Clarence’s leadership there were at least 1000 members (1). Their membership is concentrated in New York City but has a presence across the United States and even in Canada (7). The NGE has a large influence on hip-hop culture, and hip-hop’s explosion during the 1990s is largely responsible for the NGE’s continued cultural relevance outside of New York (5). Critics and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI have accused the five percenters of being a gang (6). Although many members, such as the Supreme Team, have been gang members and participated in criminal activity including theft and drug dealing, it is not encouraged or organized within the NGE (1). Clarence was mostly indifferent to criminal activity and did not take a strong stance against gangs like tha NOI has. The NGE is present in prisons, as some members participate in criminal activity and are affiliated with gangs. Due to these affiliations as well as the group’s extremist nature, some states have banned Five Percenter literature (7). Members have also been known to commit crimes in order to intentionally get arrested so that they can proselytize to inmates (1). Approach to Resistance Despite some of its members’ actions, the NGE is a primarily nonviolent group and chooses to spread its message through education, media, and music. As opposed to the religious sermons delivered by Nation of Islam ministers, the Five Percenters’ meetings, known as Universal Parliaments, are more like lessons (1). The NGE operates a school known as the Allah School in Mecca that is the de facto headquarters for the group. The group refers to Harlem as Mecca, as it has its own names for neighborhoods in New York City (11). The group also has published several newspapers such as The Word and The Five Percenter. Clarence 13X and his successors have developed a positive relationship with the City of New York, leading them to be seen as a legitimately positive force in the community by some and allowing them to use city resources to organize events and run programs, particularly during the mayorship of John Lindsay (1). The NGE’s symbol is known as the “Universal Flag” that includes a 7, or God in Supreme Mathematics, and a moon that represents women, or earths. A mural of the symbol is on the side of the Allah School in Mecca (13). The symbol has been used by percenters on clothing and jewelry, such as rapper Jay Z’s Universal Flag chain (14). Many influential New York rappers, including Big Daddy Kane, Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim, Nas, Jay Z, Busta Rhyme, and Brand Nubian have all been members of or influenced by the Five Percent Nation. Other celebrities such as singer Erykah Badu and NBA player Carmelo Anthony are also Five Percenters. Five Percenter teachings, symbolism, and jargon have spread through and are embedded in hip-hop culture. “Word is bond”, “cipher”, and “dropping science” are examples of Five Percenter phrases frequently referenced in hip-hop (5). Five Percenter rappers will also use the Supreme Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics in their lyrics, such as in “Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber”. In the song, Ghostface Killah raps “word is bond, I'm comin' to get my Culture Cipher, God”. In the Supreme Mathematics, “culture” translates to 4 and “cipher” to 0, meaning that the line is referencing a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor (15). Relations and Alliances The Five Percenters have had a mixed relationship with the Nation of Islam, as the NGE’s doctrine contradicts the NOI’s, they have competed to recruit new members, and the FOI has attacked Five Percenters. On the contrary, Clarence borrowed much from the NOI and Five Percenters have been known to attend NOI events (1). Five Percenter beliefs influenced those of the Nuwaubian Nation, a Black supremacist new religious movement with an even more esoteric ideology than the NGE or the NOI (16). As with many other Black organizations during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the Five Percenters were received with antagonism and surveilled by the FBI and police who saw them as an extremist hate group and a gang (6). Some believe that law enforcement was behind the murder of Clarence 13X, along with other murdered Black leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (7). Five Percenter literature and practices have been banned in prisons in several states, however many of these bans have been overturned in recent years (7) (17). Despite the NGE’s hostile relationship with police, Clarence fostered a positive one with the City of New York that continues today, allowing the Five Percenters to open up the Allah School in Mecca in 1967 and co-name the nearby intersection Allah and Justice Square in 2019 (1) (9). Additional Resources

Introduction The Student Armed Force (SAF) is a Burmese militia group formed in the wake of the 2021 Burmese coup d’etat. The group is primarily composed of student activists who have taken up arms against the Tatmadaw (Burmese for military) junta. With deep ties to the Arakan Army, it has mounted a guerilla warfare campaign in the Dry Zone of Burma (in Northwest Myanmar) since its founding in April of 2021 (Frontier Myanmar). History Students have long played a part in anti-authoritarian resistance in Burma. The 8888 uprising in 1988 which saw mass protests force democratic concessions from the Tatmadaw was both started and spearheaded by student unions in Yangon, where the Student Armed Force originates from (Fortify Rights 35-36). By 2021, with the exception of the many ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) present in the countryside, students were perhaps the most politically organized segment of the Burmese population, consequently, most anti-Tatmadaw protests immediately following the coup on the 1st of February were disproportionately made up of young people. The first death of what would become the Burmese Spring Revolution was of a 20-year-old student named Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing who was shot by security forces in the capital of Naypyidaw on the 9th of February (Fortify Rights 46-47). A little more than a month after her death, 92 people had reportedly died at the hands of the Tatmadaw during protests (Fortify Rights 53-54). The Student Armed Force originated from the University Students’ Union, a Yangon-based student union that was a part of the larger All Burma Federation of Student Unions (Hlaing). When the Tatmadaw launched their coup in 2021, the University Students’ Union followed their fellow students throughout the country in protesting the coup. Yangon was a particular hotspot for clashes with the Tatmadaw, where police and military forces worked with snipers to suppress protests (Fortify Rights 46). There are numerous reports of snipers targeting student protestors, including students acting as protest medics (Fortify Rights 54). Some student protesters in the streets of Yangon eventually resorted to using airguns in volley fire tactics against Tatmadaw forces (Lone). By April it became apparent that protests in the streets could not dislodge the Tatmadaw from power; leaders in the University Students’ Union turned to the Arakan Army EAO for assistance in forming the Student Armed Force (Hlaing). Objectives and Ideology The primary goal of the Student Armed Force is the complete removal of the Tatmadaw from the reins of power. As a dispatch from the “Steering Committee”, the committee in charge of the group's strategic planning, put it: “The vision of the Student Armed Forces is to promote peace and stability in the public, and to be a good force for all oppressed people who are trying to build a new nation and create their own destiny. The objectives are to protect the public, to encourage and support the construction of a new nation, to achieve success in military activities, and to fight in alliance with all oppressed people who are trying to create their own destiny” (မဇ္ဈိမ). Military and political abilities The SAF is principally an infantry force and has received exhaustive training and supplies from the Arakan Army as well as technical assistance (“AA မှ ကျောင်းသားလက်ရုံးတပ်တော်ကို အထူးတိုက်ခိုက်ရေးသင်တန်းပေး”). Most images of group members show them equipped with Chinese Kalashnikov pattern rifles. Approach to Resistance While originating from a student union engaged in peaceful protests, the SAF was founded to be a militant group. Today they remain active in the Dry Zone of Burma, still conducting a violent guerilla war against Tatmadaw forces (Frontier Myanmar). Most engagements between Tatmadaw and SAF forces consist of close-range ambushes on vehicle columns and foot patrols; the most recent example of which being an attack on a Tatmadaw vehicle column in the Sagaing Region in October of 2023 which after a 20-minute firefight produced enough casualties to force the column to retreat. International Relations and Alliances The SAF’s most critical ally has thus far been the Arakan Army EAO, as they have provided the SAF with massive amounts of military assistance in mounting their guerrilla campaign (Hlaing). Besides the Arakan Army, they take inspiration from the All Burma Students' Democratic Front and seek to follow their example of a popular student army fighting together against the Tatmadaw (မဇ္ဈိမ). The SAF is part of a larger popular front of armed groups, protesters, and some non-violent student unions. Though they hail from ideologically diverse backgrounds, students in Burma have come to be a critical part and leading force in the resistance against the Tatmadaw.

Overview Thousands of supporters of the exiled Iranian opposition group, Mojaehdin-e-Kalq (MEK), gathered as American political figure Rudy Giuliani took to the podium. The enamoured, passionate crowd that was his audience that day were not even American. The flags they waved were the green, white, and red tricolour of the old Iranian monarchy, with the lion and sun at its centre. Yet this group and its followers had helped to displace the Shah in the events of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In his speech, the former New York Mayor and ally of then President Donald Trump (known for his hardline against the Islamic Republic) promised that “they would be in Tehran much sooner than the cynics believe”  to a response of massive applause from the audience. The same people applauding, however, can hardly be known for their adherence to ideas like freedom and democracy. The organization hosting Giuliani, the MEK started as a leftist student movement in the 1960s and helped to topple the Shah's government in the 1970s, leading to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Now opposing the IRI, the MEK was forced into exile where it became even more radical, more contradictory, and more controlling. What began as a revolutionary political movement is now viewed by many as a cult which demands total submission from its members and dishes out punishment to those who dare act independently. Its ideology has become esoteric; its violent acts not only impacting its opponents but also its members, particularly women. Despite its lack of support in Iran, it has managed to become the United States handpicked choice for Iran's diaspora opposition. Though it has never been more unpopular and threatened, the group maintains its belief that it will topple the Islamic Republic. History Founded in 1965, the MEK came to life in an era where activism against the Shah, then ruler of Iran, was on the rise. Backed by the United States, the Shah was an increasingly unpopular autocrat who had been restored to power with the help of Western intelligence in the 1950s. The MEK took part in his overthrow during the revolutions of 1979. They soon came to oppose the governance and ideology of the Islamic Republic as well, garnering a ban on their activity in 1981. From there they were exiled to France. In 1986, the French government made a deal with the Islamic Republic for the release of French hostages on the condition of the MEK's exile. From there they relocated to Iraq.(1) The MEK started losing favour with the Iranian population in the 1980s when it sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. In the days following the war's end, the MEK made one last desperate attempt to inflict a blow to the Islamic Republic. 7000 of its forces launched a military operation into Iran. Dubbed "Eternal Light" the mission was doomed to failure as the IRI caught wind of the poorly thought-out military plan. Advancing down just a single road in mass, the IRGC was able to inflict high casualties on the MEK's forces, killing an estimated 2000. In response, the IRI ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners. During this time, Massoud and Marynam Rajavi took control of the organisation and began its pivot towards a more cult-like structure. (2) Despite its failures, the MEK remained in Iraq for the next two and a half decades. When the U.S. invaded and toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the MEK surrendered. In the power vacuum which followed, Iranian influence grew, threatening the MEK's presence. In 2012, the United States removed MEK from its Foreign Terrorist Organization list, facilitating its relocation to Albania, where they still reside today. (3) During the Trump administration, the group’s status as America’s preferred opposition group soared with many U.S. officials making appearances and statements for the group. The MEK publicly endorsed the protests resulting from the Murder of Jina Amini by the Iranian government in 2022. (4) Ideology and Objectives The MEK was founded by revolutionary students in the 1960s and attempted to combine Marxist socialism and revolutionary Shia Islamism. It has since denied its links to Marxism, a hard sell considering its original logo is clearly inspired by Marxist iconography. Today it can be seen more as a cult that has overthrown the Islamic Republic and dedication to the Rajavis as its two core tenants. (5) To become as contrary to the Islamic Republic as possible, the MEK incorporated feminism into its worldview. Their form of “feminism” proved far from liberatory, however; women command each military unit within the MEK and also compose the entirety of the group’s High Council. At the same time, the group demands total submission to Rajavi and its goals. There can be no distractions or other commitments. Under this justification, there have been forced divorces, separation of families, and worst of all, non-consensual hysterectomies. (6) All members of the group must adhere to celibacy and any steps out of line result in sleep deprivation, physical and emotional abuse, and isolation. (7) Military and Political Abilities The MEK has evolved from an armed organisation to more of a political one due to its remoteness from Iran and elderly membership. Instead of conducting strikes in Iran or using weapons like a legitimate military force, their primary activities these days are lobbying US lawmakers and using troll farms to intimidate IRI leaders and sympathisers. They have shown themselves to be highly successful in this area. John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump and a long-time influential voice in American foreign policy, is a registered lobbyist for the group. Both the MEK and Bolton opposed the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, which was repealed under the Trump presidency. Several prominent American politicians in addition to Bolton have had deep ties to the MEK, including Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and Howard Dean. They have also obtained the support of both Conservative and Labour politicians in the UK. (8) Approach to Resistance In its first decades of existence, the MEK was capable of carrying out bold and deadly attacks on entities tied to the Shah’s Iranian government and the Islamic Republic. Many of their early attacks were carried out against American targets for their support of the Shah’s government. In 1972, they set off bombs at the U.S. embassy and assassinated one of the main American military figureheads in the country the next year. It is also claimed they partook in the 1979 American embassy siege and ensuing hostage crisis. (9) Following exile, they continued armed activity for some time. Armed by Saddam, they fought alongside the Iraqi military in the 1980s against Iran. (10) In the early 1990s, they carried out a series of raids against Iranian embassies in Europe. (11) Currently, most of the MEK’s resistance activity is done through internet troll farms, which flood the social media accounts of Islamic Republic officials and supporters, while simultaneously voicing support for the MEK. As will be discussed later, the group may also be responsible for carrying out assassinations inside Iran with the backing of Israel. (12) International Relations and Alliances With its ageing member base and its lack of popularity among Iranians, the question arises: where does the MEK get the funding for its lobbying efforts and other activities? Based on some of its guests as well as sharing some common enemies, it is thought the governments of Saudi Arabia and Israel are the prime backers of the MEK’s activity. The Saudi prince and former intelligence chief of the Kingdom Turki al-Faisal has spoken for the group at events. The Intercept, quoting an anonymous former intelligence official for the United States, claims that MEK members have been “deniable assets” taking part in the assassinations on Iranian nuclear scientists on behalf of the Israelis. (13) Anti-Iran hawks in the United States continue to back the MEK as their preferred opposition group, but what happens as the remaining members of the group age and die out is a question left for the future. For now, and for the foreseeable future, the group will likely remain in Albania - its members confined to life inside the organization with the odds of seeing their homeland again slim to none. For many inside the MEK, the biggest enemy is no longer the Islamic Republic, but their own cause.

Introduction and Overview Resistência Galega (Galician Resistance or RG) is an armed organisation from Galicia, located in Spain’s northwest. Its ideology is pro-independence, socialist, feminist and environmentalist. The term was first used in 2005, when a manifesto titled Manifesto da Resistência Galega  was published online. RG has an ideological definition in which violence plays an important role that complements and reinforces the political action of nationalism. Its discourse falls within the typical scheme of nationalist thought which finds in Galicia's insertion within Spain the root of a supposed decadence and exploitation which, it is claimed, can only be overcome through the simultaneous achievement of independence and socialism. (5,7,3) Resistência Galega is considered a terrorist organisation by, among other courts and institutions, the Audiencia Nacional, the Supreme Court, the Junta de Galicia, the Government of Spain, the Parliament of Galicia, the Congress of Deputies and Europol. It is to this day the only officially recognized terrorist organisation in Spain, along with the ETA (Basque nationalist separatist organisation) (7). This has since been a topic of controversy, as there has been a lack of “evidence that they (RG) attempted against the life, integrity or freedom of people.” (8) History and Foundation On 20 July 2005, a few days before the celebration of Galicia Day, coinciding with the feast of St. James the Apostle, Resistência Galega (RG), made itself known through the publication of a manifesto, announcing its support for armed struggle and the immediate start of a violent campaign. Three days after the manifesto’s publication, the organisation’s first attack took place. RG placed an explosive device at the head offices of the bank Caixa Galicia in the community’s capital of Santiago de Compostela. This act was the solidification of the movement to lead Galician independence and brought multiple violent groups which had been responsible for a chain of acts denounced as terrorist since the start of the new century. (5) During the 1970s and 1980s, Galicia witnessed the emergence of various armed groups, including the Loita Armada Revolucionaria, "Liga Armada Galega", the Ejército Guerrilheiro do Povo Galego Ceive (EGPGC), and the military front Unión do Povo Galego (UPG), which had a dozen militants. Reportedly, Resistencia Galega was established by the Assembleia da Mocidade Independentista (Assembly of Independentist Youth) as a continuation of these militant groups, as evidenced by the publication of their manifesto in 2005. This document also detailed previous attacks on Spanish army installations and political party offices, among other incidents. (7) The Spanish National High Court traces the origins of Resistência Galega back to 2005 when Antón García Matos, also known as Tonihno, initiated the revival of EGPGC, a group he was previously involved with and had been incarcerated for. EGPGC had been disbanded in 1975 following the death of one of its members at the hands of the police, with four others imprisoned, prompting the remaining members to flee into exile. At the end of the decade, the Partido Galego do Proletariado (PGP), which split from UPG in 1978, established Galiza Ceive-OLN (GC-OLN). Under its arm, Loita Armada Revolucionaria (LAR), GC-OLN orchestrated multiple attacks until its dissolution in September 1980, leading to the arrest of several members, including Antom Arias Curto. Curto later became a key figure in the Exército Guerriheiro do Povo Galego Ceive (EGPGV), the terrorist organisation that saw significant growth during those years. Formed in 1983, EGPGV comprised former GC-OLN and UPG members, conducting attacks until 1990, and vanishing permanently three years later. (5,7) EGPGV is linked to a total of 90 attacks, primarily involving bombs, resulting mainly in material damage. However, they are held responsible for the murder of a civil guard in 1989, as well as the deaths of two individuals in one of their final acts: the explosion in October 1990 at a club, where the two terrorists involved also died, injuring 49 people to varying degrees. (3) The Guerriheiro Army was defeated by State Security Forces, leading to Arias Curto's imprisonment until 1995. On the same date, the Asamblea de Mocidade Independentista (AMI) was established as an independent entity, although it had operated since two years prior as a branch of the Assemblea do Povo Unido (APU), a breakaway faction of the Frente Popular Galego (FPG). FPG itself had connections to various dissenting groups from UPG in the late 1980s. A decade later, Galician Resistance emerged from AMI. In 2001, AMI joined forces with other organisations, notably the communist Primeira Linha (PL), to form Nós-Unidade Popular (Nós-UP), from which members later contributed to RG. These groups are part of the Galician National Liberation Movement (MLNG), which also includes sectorial militant groups—such as those advocating feminism, ecology, sports, language preservation, youth, civil rights, student activism, and trade unionism—that maintain close ties with similar organisations within the Basque, Catalan, Asturian, and Castilian independence movements. (5) The MLNG's terrorist escalation predates the emergence of Resistência Galega. Since 2001, the most radical members of AMI, Nós-UP, AGIR, and BRIGA—student and youth factions within the movement—have engaged in a violent campaign, seeking to mirror the street terrorism seen in the Basque Country. (3) The final attack attributed to RG took place in 2014 at the City Hall of Baralla, where the Popular Party held power, causing substantial material damage. (5,6) The arrest of the remaining leaders Toninho and his partner, Asunción Losada Camba, in 2019, marked the downfall of the organisation. They had been fugitives for 13 years, residing in an abandoned farmhouse in the municipality of Fornelos (Pontevedra). Following their apprehension, the two leaders accepted a sentence of 28 years and 3 months in prison after admitting to the crimes they were charged with, resulting in reduced sentences. (3,6) Objectives and Ideology The ideological stance of Resistência Galega centres on asserting the national sovereignty of the Galician people within a far-left ideology. RG hasn’t elaborated extensively ideologically or theoretically. There have only been two documents in which the group has expressed its thinking and its project of armed struggle. (5) The first document was the previously mentioned Manifesto, published in 2005. The second one would be published in October 2011. The ideological arguments expressed in both are very similar, the main innovation of the second one being its affirmation of the validity of terrorism as a form of struggle for the achievement of pro-independence objectives. (1) The starting point of the group’s ideology, corresponds to the affirmation of the national character of Galicia and the longing of itself. The first manifesto, states: "We have the collective will and determination to assert our right to exist as a people ... taking pride in our identity(...) We are a nation ... a collective subjectivity formed by free citizens in a sovereign Galicia that built generation after generation a warp and tradition of struggle ... The Galician people are not an abstract concept, a metaphysical entity ... (since) national identity is always forged in a historical time and in a territorial space in the presence of socioeconomic, political and environmental catalysts." (1) Later on, the document states the decadence of the Galician people and land brought by Spain’s nationalist oppression. “Spanish democratic normality is a historical fact that administers our death as a nation, preventing needs from becoming realities, historically frustrating the desire and need for sovereignty.” In the second manifesto, this idea is further enforced, talking about Spain as “aggressors of their land” who have only taken the “(Galician) working class into desperation” RG further identifies the Spanish nation as rooted in the Francoist dictatorship who hasn’t evolved into a democratic state and which police forces are “a criminal network seated on (a) gigantic electoral machinery that is proof against great failures, and with its knives always sharpened, has been marking the destinies of our nation with blood and fire.” (2) After naming the issues and establishing their ideas, RG advocates for cultural, economical, political and illegal resistance as a remedy. This illegal resistance, includes the use of armed force as part of a broader political and social spectrum, which would be more directly addressed in their second manifesto, making a correlation with the group’s attacks and their economic impact to the state, with a warning for their future actions: “The enemies of our land must know that Galicia is neither sold nor destroyed, that the Galician people do not submit. If they are committed to the opposite, they should stick to the consequences.” As a closing of their second manifesto, RG writes: ADIANTE A RESISTÊNCIA GALEGA GALIZA CEIVE, PODER POPULAR ANTES MORTOS QUE ESCRAVOS FORWARD OF THE GALICIAN RESISTANCE A FREE GALICIA, POPULAR POWER BETTER DEAD THAN SLAVES (2) Military/Political Abilities Since its inception, RG has claimed terrorism as a tactic, but it wasn't until six years later, with the publication of its second manifesto, that it emphasised its revolutionary effectiveness. However, RG's advocacy for terrorism is solely practical; it has never articulated a theory advocating for the subordination of political or cultural actions to armed struggle. RG appears as one more among the organisations integrated under the umbrella of the political party OLN, each of which exercises a specialised function. RG has positioned terrorism alongside other forms of political combat within the pro-independence movement. Despite this, the intention to use violence to energise these actions is hinted at in the first manifesto and made explicit in the second. Criticising pro-independence forces that oppose terrorism, RG suggests that Galician independence gains strength when all forms of struggle are intelligently combined, including armed tactics. (5) Approach to Resistance "The personal and social costs of armed struggle ... are infinitely lighter than those of disarmament and compliance with the rules imposed on us ... Without conflict there is no change, no future." The approach to resistance of the RG was mainly focused at offices and headquarters of the Popular Party (PP). Their acts tend to be handmade explosives placed or thrown at different objects or establishments, being predominant the political parties’ headquarters, banks, public offices, or the homes of public figures. These attacks are normally intended to only cause material damage. The 137 attacks registered from 2005 to 2013 have left six wounded and one premeditated death, that of an ex militant of AMI. (3) It's important to mention that the RG typically doesn't admit to carrying out its attacks. Additionally, concerning the resources utilised by the terrorist group, it's worth noting that the RG has turned to theft to acquire explosives. Specifically, two robberies in Portugal in 2008 resulted in over 26,000 euros worth of stolen goods being attributed to them. Apart from theft for the group’s finances, there have also been donations by nationalist supporters exposed. The data from the attacks shows that a third of them target various types of companies, with banking institutions being the most common targets, followed by infrastructure and construction companies, as well as real estate companies. Political parties, trade unions, and employers' associations have also been systematically targeted, often resulting in severe destruction. About one fifth of the attacks are directed at specific individuals, including political representatives, but frequently targeting prominent figures in civic movements against nationalist interests. Lastly, less frequent actions include symbolic gestures, such as burning national flags in illegal demonstrations, attacks on public offices (typically courts or employment offices), and the destruction of municipal facilities. International Relations & Alliances According to the Spanish Guardia Civil, RG has maintained relations with other Spanish organisations such as ETA and GRAPO, through public support and intel exchange with reported contact between the Basques.(10) There were investigations of the regrouping of revolutionary youth from ETA to RG following the dissolution of the former group. (9) RG also maintained political relations and military training through Jarrai, ETA's most aggressive youth movement, and pro-Palestinian people who gave them courses in the area of Monforte and Cangas do Morraz. (11) The Prosecutor's Office after the arrest of the remaining leaders in 2019, stated that despite the ineffective illegalization of Causa Galiza in December 2016, the organisation continued to engage in specific activities aimed at supporting members of Resistencia Galega and past terrorist groups associated with it. These activities included campaigns supporting individuals like María Osorio López, convicted of terrorism in 2013, as well as events commemorating Galicia Day on July 25 and Día da Galiza Combatente on October 11. The prosecutor also highlighted Causa Galiza's collaboration with radical and violent independentist groups at the national level, expressing support and solidarity with their causes(12), such as GRAPO and Grupos Anarquistas Coordinados.

Introduction & Overview The Malorussian Liberation Army is a militant group active on the pro-Russian side of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The group’s origins are unclear, but it has been active at least since June 2023 as a military unit and even earlier as an online activist group. History & Foundations The Malorussian Liberation Army (MLA) established an online presence in the Russian net starting in June 2023, but its origins are rooted in a Russian online community known as Local Crew. This community began as an effort to unite different people who had got acquainted online and convince them to transpose their online presence into a real life network of decentralized activist groups (1). Starting in March 2017, with the first meeting in Moscow, the original group continued expanding with further meetups in St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia, which sometimes took place as sporting events (2). While it is difficult to establish exactly what the reach of the Local Crew network is, an interactive map available on their website purports to show members in tens of cities all over the world, including Europe and the Americas (3). Local Crew have also established a remarkably diverse range of topics their associates can discuss, with a decentralized network of online Discord and Telegram servers, many of which grouped under another umbrella network, Zloch (4). Although Zloch.ru itself seems to have gone offline, some of the Telegram channels linked to it survive, including those focusing on guns and gaming (5). The network even included a Wiki project at some point, but it is now offline, as well (6). The onset of the “Special Military Operation” in 2022 seems to have radically altered the equilibrium of this community. Throughout 2022, and starting just a few days after the beginning of the Russian invasion, the Local Crew YouTube channel started uploading several video montages glorifying the activity of the Russian military, while media of all kinds appeared on the Local Crew website promoting and supporting the SMO. In September 2022, an article was published on the Local Crew website, describing how best to prepare oneself regarding the possibility of being called up by Russian Armed Forces as part of the then ongoing mobilization drive. This article contains minute details on what equipment is preferrable, what personal effects should be brought and how they should be handled, and even suggestions for thematic literature (7). While Local Crew increased their “agitprop” activity, it was not until June 2023 that the group openly declared the formation of the MLA. Since then, the group has continued to operate on the internet, engaging mostly with Russian and Ukrainian speakers and spreading propaganda. It also occasionally releases content related to their military activity. Ideology & Objectives Local Crew have published a number of works on history(8), pop culture, philosophy (9), Russian translations of articles published in foreign languages (10), and even commentaries on urban planning (11). Since the beginning of the “Special Military Operation”, the content of their activities seems to have noticeably drifted to the right in support of the Russian Armed Forces. More recent pictures taken during their meeting have also shown many participants holding Russian flags from the Imperial era and Novorossiya flags (a proposed irredentist confederation spanning southern and eastern Ukraine). The Malorussian Liberation Army, the military offshoot of Local Crew, was created under the auspices of this new “course”, and is therefore solidly rooted in Russian nationalism and irredentism. To precisely understand what “Malorussia” is, it is necessary to understand the historical and cultural connotation of this term. “Malorussia”, also rendered as “Little Russia” is a historical geographical term that came in use during the High Middle Ages (11th – 15th century) and was the predominant term to describe what is now Ukraine up until the late 19th century. During this time, Imperial Russian identity was considered to be a Pan-Russian identity, itself subdivided into a trinity of White Russian, Great Russian, and Little Russian peoples inhabiting three homonymous regions as enshrined in the solemn proclamation of the Tsar as the “Emperor and Autocrat of All Russias. (12)” The ethnonym Little Russian became a contested term in the 19th century, when a nascent movement of Ukrainian nationalism opposed the idea that Ukrainians had much in common with Russia proper, and strove to abolish the concept of Little Russia so that it may be replaced with a more autonomous Ukrainian identity, one that would not exist under the umbrella of a great Pan-Russian identity uniting East Slavs, something which the proponents of a Little Russian identity supported, notwithstanding the peculiarities of their culture (13). After the end of World War I and the reorganization of Soviet Union during the 1920s, the Little Russian ethnonym gave way to Ukrainian identity (albeit in a more moderate, brotherly understanding of it than Ukrainian nationalists had envisioned), even if Russian nationalists and émigrés continued referring to the region as Little Russia (14). In essence, the Malorussian Liberation Army has reappropriated this antiquated ethnonym with the intention of reviving a subnational Little Russian identity that stresses the unity of East Slavs under a greater All-Russian identity. In a manifesto published on their Telegram channel in October 2023, the MLA declared the liberation of the “Little Russian Fatherland” from and the removal of “Ukrainian occupation” as one of their primary goals. They also advocate for the restoration of ties between Russia and Little Russia, the liberation of political prisoners, inquisitions into the crimes of the “Ukrainian and Bolshevist regimes”, and an end to the war (15). Political & Military Abilities At the time of their founding, the MLA claimed to have more than 4700 militants operating in Ukraine (16). At the time of writing, their website claimed that more than 5100 militants had joined the MLA (17). This would mean that the MLA is a brigade-size militant group; however, the actual numbers are likely much lower, possibly placing the actual strength of the MLA around a company-size or battlegroup-size formation of 100-150 militants at most.The MLA has published several pictures of heavy equipment they supposedly operate, such as tanks (18). They are also active as infantry with common light weapons (19). Regardless of their military capacity, the MLA are adept at engaging in memetic warfare and are very well versed in adapting cultural items from the net to create politically-laden propaganda. The dissemination of MLA-related content covers several social networks, including Telegram, Youtube, TikTok, and others. Media produced by the MLA includes memes recycling general formats to produce humorous renditions of the MLA’s ideology, short montage videos including heavily edited war footage and catchy songs, as well as visual material serving as propaganda to romanticize warfare in Ukraine and Russia’s military operations. The grassroot model adopted by Local Crew and the MLA is also a decentralized network that allows them to operate in multiple countries and access the relative national internet subspheres.Short videos and stills documenting their military activity have been released, but there is little indication that the group is as strong as it claims to be. Nevertheless, the MLA’s primary objective seems to be agitating Russian and Ukrainian netizens as part of a propaganda campaign aimed not only at delegitimizing the Ukrainian state and military, but also to boost the visibility of their own metapolitical identity into the mainstream of Eastern European internet discourse. International Relations & Alliances The MLA is understood to be fighting in Ukraine on the pro-Russian side, and is therefore likely to cooperate with the majority of other militias and units, while also being included in the chain of command and order of battle of the Russian Armed Forces. Additional Resources

Insurgency Overview The League of St George was founded in 1974 by former members of a group called Sir Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement. (1) This movement was launched in 1948 and was an amalgam of 51 right-wing organizations, most of them being right-wing book clubs. (2) The League of St George’s website states: “like [the] Union Movement, the League was to dedicate itself to Mosley’s concept of a united Europe … Europe a Nation. The League has never aimed to be a political party but more of a lobby group to influence and encourage established nationalist parties to embrace the Europe a Nation philosophy.” The League’s website also states that they believe they are the first British group since Mosley himself to establish links with other European nationalists. It is led by a President who is supported by a League Council in an advisory role. Full membership of the League of St George is by invitation only, and prospective members must answer the question: “what can you do for the League?” Among its activities, the League of St George publishes a quarterly publication called The Sentinel, and according to the League’s website: “articles on Mosley, National Socialism, History and the Holocaust have been featured in the past along with dozens of other subjects of interest to the European Racial Nationalist.” As well as this quarterly newsletter, the League of St George has a commercial arm called League Enterprises/ Steven Books, (3) which offers publications “not normally available through mainstream outlets, on Folk-culture, history and politics.” (1) However, when accessed for this piece on 20 February 2024, the Steve Books website stated that “[d]ue to unforeseen circumstances we are currently unable to accept new orders. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and hope to be back to normal soon.” (4) Though the League of St George is ostensibly still in existence, it has seemed largely inactive since about 2016, when it was noted by the charity Hope Note Hate to be mostly irrelevant. History & Foundations The League of St George was started by former members of Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement. Mosley (1896-1980) was an English politician who founded and led the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from 1932 until 1940, and then founded its successor: the Union Movement, which he led from its founding in 1948 until his death. Both groups were known for distributing anti-Semitic propaganda, wearing Nazi-style uniforms, and holding hostile demonstrations throughout Jewish neighborhoods in East London. Mosley also served in the British House of Commons from 1918 until 1931: he served successively as a Conservative, an independent, and a Labour Party member, holding a Labour ministry 1929-30. Following this, he attempted to form a socialist party in 1930, but was defeated in his campaign for reelection to Parliament. The year after, he founded the BUF, garnering enthusiasm for the group with his considerable oratory skills and additional support from the newspaper publisher Viscount Rothermere, who created popular journalism in the UK and, along with his brother, built the most successful journalistic empire in UK history. (5) The BUF modeled its ideology on the Italian Fascist regime and Nazi Germany, and both of these movements financially supported Mosley’s British iteration. In fact, the BUF largely owes its founding to a trip Mosley took to Italy, where he became enamored with the system created by Benito Mussolini, and the Union was founded on his return to England. Mosley also had his own bodyguards, known as the ‘Biff Boys’, who expanded into what later became known as the Blackshirts, enforcers reminiscent of Mussolini’s national militia which had the same name. In addition to the Blackshirts, the BUF held demonstrations where Mosley displayed his oratorical skill, while he cultivated relationships with similar figureheads such as Mussolini himself, and Adolf Hitler. For instance, Mosley had Hitler present at the intimate 1936 ceremony held to marry his second wife, Diana Guinness – a fascist socialite – and the wedding ceremony itself took place at the house of the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. By 1936, the BUF was already a rather spent force politically, but still, the group garnered support from fascists for the march that would lead to the famous Battle of Cable Street in this year. In this march, 5,000 British Blackshirts marched through a Jewish community in the East End of London – then the largest Jewish community in Britain. Instead of heeding the call from local police to stay in their houses and allow the march to take place, 20,000 protesters took to the streets to prevent it. They were met with 6,000 uniformed police, who attempted to break their blockade and allow the BUF march. While underreported, there remain accounts of the neighboring Irish community fighting alongside Jewish protesters, despite tensions between the two communities in the past. (6) In 1940, Mosley was incarcerated along with other leaders from the BUF. The incarceration was made under wartime defense regulations in Britain that allowed the Government to arrest and detain enemy sympathizers, and eventually a total of 750 BUF members were interned. By July of 1940, the group’s activities had therefore ceased. On his release in 1948, Mosley attempted to resurrect the BUF, and his founding of the Union Movement is in large part a response to the futility of this attempt – unable to bring back the street presence of the Blackshirts, Mosley settled for drawing together a network of book clubs and other right-wing groups. The Union Movement was later renamed as the Action Party, and was active until about 1994; meanwhile, the League of St George was founded in 1974 as a splinter group of the Union Movement/Action Party, and took over the mantle of fascist book distribution. The founders of the League, Mike Griffin and Keith Thompson, made this split to follow what they saw as a purer form of Mosley’s ideology than that being proffered by the Union Movement. Ideology & Goals The ideology of the League of St George is drawn from Mosley’s own political philosophy. This centered on the creation of a ‘corporate state’, in which industries would be organized as corporations that operated as partnerships between employers and workers. Representation in Parliament would be occupational as opposed to geographical by constituencies, and members of particular occupations would therefore vote for candidates to represent their chosen industry. The system would be overseen by what Mosley dubbed a “modern dictatorship”, and in addition to favoring a highly planned economy under this system, Mosley was virulently anti-Semitic, an ideological cornerstone sustained in the BUF, Union Movement and League of St George respectively. (2) Perhaps more influential in the League’s ideology as a whole however, is another of Mosley’s political tenets: that of “Europe a nation” or European nationalism. European nationalism at first glance seems incongruous, given that nationalism is inherently linked to a single nation’s patriotic identity; furthermore, the European Union (EU) has mostly been posited as a prevention tactic against nationalism, and is seen as mostly a-national, anti-national or supranational. This mode of thinking about the EU originated as early as the 1950s, when the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and then the European Economic Community (EEC) both emerged as ideas for preventing the oppressive nationalism that had led to the two world wars. (7) The followers of Oswald Mosley, both within the Union Movement and outside it, seem to have viewed the European Union as a defensive strategy against ‘Russian Communism’, and an antidote to loss of empire, ‘given away by the mad folly of politicians’. There was also an argument for them, that National Socialism could not prevail within one contained bastion of a country, namely Britain. Instead, it was necessary to look further afield to build this world. (8) Set against this backdrop, Mosley’s own European nationalism was centered on halting what he saw as the descent of the West into permanent decadence, by creating a ‘fascistized’ Europe which he proposed should be based on the ‘Four Power Bloc’ of fascist-run  Britain, France, Germany and Italy. His vision was not shared among other fascists. (9) The League of St George has continued Mosley’s ideas and mainly concentrated efforts on distributing the figure’s writings, along with other Nazi and fascist leaflets and propaganda. While other right-wing British groups have focused on specific issues, such as immigration or anti-Islam policies, the League has maintained its original philosophy, though it may simply appear that way as the group’s online footprint has remained the same, while its members have abandoned it for other ventures. Another facet to Mosley’s views that has lingered less so among his followers, is that he was a staunch supporter of Irish independence, with this view sitting uneasily alongside his determined positivity towards the idea of a British Empire; his Blackshirts included many Irishmen. Mosley’s views on Irish nationalism were what led to his split with the Conservative Party: he criticized the violence of the Black and Tans auxiliaries in the Irish Civil War, eventually quitting the Party over it. (8) Over time, this may have added to the distance between the League and other far-right groups, which were often more focused on English nationalism specifically, and had a tenser relationship with Irish politics, as seen in the 2021 visit of Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon, to Ireland. However, also evident in this visit was some extent of tactics sharing between Irish and English far-right movements, and contacts, so this relationship is a complex one. (10) Approach to Resistance The League of St George has always mainly concentrated on distribution of fascist texts, particularly the writings of its figurehead Mosley, as well as other notable figures such as Hitler himself. In previous iterations of Mosley’s ideology, a street presence was always quite important, however the League have remained closer in methods to the Union Movement, which in its succession of the BUF concentrated on literature as opposed to demonstrations or the intimidation tactics of Mosley’s Blackshirts. This may have been in part due to a 1936 law passed banning political uniforms in Britain, which was aimed at preventing the Blackshirts from carrying out their hostile street fights and protests. (11) In addition to stocking a collection of fascist texts, the League also created a sound library on the Steven Books website; this is now defunct with the files inaccessible, but used to act as host to a variety of political talks, such as ‘Mosley - Earls Court’, and a musical file titled “BUF Marching Song.’ (12) Along with the sound library, there is a YouTube video from the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival of the League of St George’s skinheads performing a song entitled ‘Argy Bargy.’ (13) It is notable that the League used more traditional tactics compared to the far-right groups that would succeed it in the UK. Groups like the British National Party, National Front and the later National Action would all generate more of a street presence and community than the League, likely in part due to it being founded and primarily run in a pre-internet time when social media could not be utilized for garnering popularity or organizing in-person demonstrations. International Relations & Potential Alliances As posited on the Steven Books website, “the most important job within the League’s structure is that of Overseas Officer for it is his task to establish the links, first in Europe and later worldwide, with like-minded Folk-Nationalists.” (3) The BUF enjoyed considerable support from other fascist states, namely Italy and Germany, during its founding and throughout World War II; furthermore, Mosley and his followers were committed to an idea of European nationalism that allowed for wider coordination and large-scale economic planning, and therefore alliances with their European neighbors were welcomed. However, during the emergence of the Union Movement and then successively the League of St George, this European nationalism began to exist less formally and more as a network of distributing fascist leaflets, books and audio recordings. This is likely simply due to a change of political environment: with the ending of World War II, the shift of Germany and Italy from fascism to democracy, and the advent of the first European economic union relationships, there was less traction available for a fascistic European identity and less financial or formal support on offer for British fascists wanting European ties. Rather than forming political ties with other groups, the League of St George seems to have faded into an obscure book and pamphlet publisher, with its members presumably folding into one of the many later iterations of far-right political organization in Britain. Additional Resources

Insurgency Overview Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz'afin, or the Basij, is an Iranian paramilitary militia organized under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC). Formed in the wake of the Iranian Revolution by Ayatollah Khomeini, Basij members, often called Basiji, are tasked with quelling domestic unrest and enforcing the decrees of the Ayatollah within Iran. The Basij has recently become infamous for its crackdown on protesters during the 2022-2023 Mahsa Amini Protests. History and Foundations The story of the Basij began on the 29th of November, 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the formation of a “people’s army of 20 million” to defend Iran against both domestic opposition and an American invasion he believed to be imminent (Schahgaldian 99). Just weeks earlier, on the 4th of November, the US Embassy in Tehran was stormed by student revolutionaries who took 66 US citizens hostage, which massively heightened tensions between the two countries (Schahgaldian 87-88). In the uncertain political landscape of the revolution, Khomeini saw the need for a massive paramilitary force loyal to the political and religious teachings of the Islamic Republican Party. In September 1980, Iraq made an incursion into the Iranian province of Khuzestan, kicking off the 8-year-long Iran-Iraq War. Basij units made up a considerable number of Iranian frontline forces and participated in some of the most brutal tactics of the war. Basiji were oftentimes used in human wave tactics where inexperienced fighters, often including child soldiers, would charge at well-defended Iraqi lines and quickly be cut down in a hail of gunfire (Arasli 16). Thousands of Basiji lost their lives in this manner in what was quickly dubbed a “Cult of Martyrdom” surrounding the Ayatollah’s regime (Dorraj 489-490). Alongside the war with Iraq, the Basij also spearheaded quashing a violent revolt of political opposition. In 1981, the National Council of Resistance (NCR), a coalition of opposition groups including the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the National Democratic Front, launched attacks on IRGC members. The IRGC fought back with a vengeance and by the end of 1982, the rebellion was mostly extinguished. Conservative figures state that approximately 3,000 rebels were executed by the Iranian government during the revolt, an average of 50 per day (Curtis and Hooglund 64). The effects of the 1981 rebellion on the Basij were palpable; from 1981 to 1982 they severely ramped up surveillance, purges, arrests, and home searches until December 1982, when the Ayatollah himself decreed an end to the wiretapping of civilians and put restrictions on the actions of the Basij (Curtis and Hooglund 65). By 1988, when the Iran-Iraq War finally ended, the IRGC, and by extension, the Basij, had won significant domestic political popularity for their massive sacrifices during the war (Arasli 16). Post-war Iran saw the rise of the Basij as a power in the Iranian economy. Following the war, the government faced massive challenges with reincorporating the hundreds of thousands of Basiji back into society. It was eventually decided that Basiji would participate in Iran’s first five-year development plan, working on reconstructing towns and cities impacted by the war. (Curtis and Hooglund 271). In 1992, the Basij Cooperative Foundation (BCF) was formed as a welfare organization for Basijis. Before this, in 1982, a small Basij welfare net had been established to provide things like no-interest loans and housing to Basijis who oftentimes come from the lower classes of Iranian society (Golkar 628-629). In 1994, parliament passed a law that gave Basij priority in buying government-owned stocks which had a massive impact as different Basij chapters bought into anything from agriculture to automobile manufacturing. The effects of the Basij’s influence on the Iranian economy continued as it quickly became a massive economic arm of the Iranian state. Basiji are oftentimes used as workers for government-sponsored infrastructure initiatives under the BCF-owned Construction Basij Organization (CBO), investing in rural communities throughout Iran to gain support for their political backers (Golkar 631). In 2007, the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, ordered a massive privatization initiative that allowed the Basij, who already had priority in buying government stocks, to gain an effective monopoly on government privatization. The move allowed the regime to get rid of major sources of budget strain while at the same time controlling the industries they privatized via their proxies (Golkar 633). Since the post-war reforms, the Basij has spearheaded a type of carrot-and-stick strategy for the Iranian regime; cracking down on dissent while at the same time attracting young people, oftentimes teenagers, to accept the regime’s political will through a myriad of welfare programs. While simultaneously expanding the economy of Iran, the Basij were tasked with enforcing the fundamentalist Islamic teachings of the Ayatollah. A 1992 law granted Basiji the power to citizen arrests, a power that has since been used to arrest “suspicious” individuals and, in particular, repress women and men who do not follow the Islamic dress code mandated by the state (Curtis and Hooglund 272). Given the authority to enforce the state’s desires, they have effectively become a secret police force masquerading as a militia. Even today, Iranians who do not follow the decrees of the Ayatollah are subject to arrest by Basiji militiamen. In 2009, opposition parties made accusations of fraud in the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardliner for the regime. Massive protests broke out throughout the country against the government in what became known as the “Green Movement” (Keath). The Basij were quickly deployed by the government to crack down on the protests. Basiji shot into crowds of protesters and conducted mass arrests, culminating in at least 150 casualties according to some sources (“Chaos prevails as protesters, police clash in Iranian capital”). The trend of brutally responding to protests continued in 2019 when in response to massive gas prices, protests erupted in what came to be known as “Bloody November”. The Basij cracked down on those protests with major voracity, killing more than 200 people and arresting thousands more (Martin 11). These killings fomented even more resistance against the regime, particularly in universities, which became strongholds for opposition protesters (“دانشجویان امیرکبیر چهارمین روز اعتراض‌ها؛ حمله بسیجیان به”). On September 13th, 2022, Mahsa Amini was taken into custody by the Gasht-e Ershad, or morality police in Tehran for not following the Islamic dress code. While in transit to a detention center, she was tortured by multiple policemen and fell into a coma. She died 3 days later on the 16th of September (“What happened to Mahsa/Zhina Amini?”). While her killers were not Basiji, the Gasht-e Ershad fulfilled a role very similar to the Basij, to enforce the fundamentalist teachings of the Ayatollah. With chapters of Basiji in every town and city, the strict enforcement of dress codes and the crackdown on dissent is a commonly shared experience in Iran. Her death led to a wildfire of dissent and resistance throughout the country (Strzyżyńska). The Mahsa Amini protests were responded to in the same way as the others. The Basij deployed across Iran, crushing protests and arresting more than 19,000 people (Loft). Killings during the protests topped any seen before, with 537 killed in protests by the Basij and other forces, and more than 300 executed by the government (“Report on 200 Days of Protest Repression/List of at Risk Protesters”). Objectives & Ideology As an organization within the IRGC, the Basij is inseparable from the Islamic fundamentalist ideology of the Ayatollah and the regime. As a force created during the Iranian Revolution, the Basij has not only served its role of guarding the regime by suppressing internal opposition but also indoctrinating the youth of Iran into the regime’s ideology (Schahgaldian 95). The Basij is not just a paramilitary organization, but a social club and symbol of allegiance to the Ayatollah. Members of the group disproportionately come from the poorer and more conservative sections of Iranian society, which are also the sections of society that the regime gains most of its support from. The Basij are not just a government organization or a militia, they are inexorably linked to the cultural and political divide of Iranian society (Abbasi). Consequently, many Basiji have used the ideological loyalty and the vast economic resources of the Basij to enter Iranian politics; those Basiji who have found themselves climbing the political ladder are known to be among some of the most conservative figures in the Iranian state and have only further campaigned for more government investment into the Basij (Golkar 641-642). Military & Political Capabilities While official estimates on the number of the Basij put them at around 20 million members, most estimates give the number of members at around three to five million split into at least 47,000 bases throughout the country. Around 20% of their numbers are made up of children and teenagers, with chapters being organized in schools and universities being common (Martin 4-10). They are principally an infantry-focused force and are often seen training with Kalashnikov pattern rifles. However, lethal weapons are not seen in most modern instances of Basiji in action, instead substituted for riot control weapons or simple clubs, used to crack down on protests or enforce the laws of the regime. While most Basiji have only acted in an internal enforcement role, there have been reports of the Basij stretching beyond their task of domestic security. The Basij have been known to contribute to volunteer fighters in Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq. While this role would normally be delegated to the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations branch, it seems that the Basij are now also contributing to Iran’s regional goals. According to an Iraqi official in 2014, some 2,000 Basij had crossed the border to meet up with Iranian-backed militias (Chulov). Reports also show that around 50 student Basij had died in the Syrian Civil War (Majidyar). Regional involvement seems to be becoming part of the Basiji forte as more of its members involve themselves in the “Axis of Resistance” that Iran has built throughout the Middle East. Approach to Operations The Basij began in the 80s as a group dedicated to the domestic defense of the nation; when Iraq invaded Iran, hundreds of thousands of Basiji confronted Iraqi forces head-on in suicidal wave attacks. In 2008, the Basij’s “Resistance Districts” were reorganized into the IRGC Provincial Corps, which signaled a shift in the Basij into a more ideologically focused paramilitary and enforcement group (“The IRGC Provincial Corps”). Since then, the Basij has greatly increased its assets and economic hold on the country, transforming itself into a hallmark of both Iranian geo-strategic planning and Iranian society itself. International Relations & Alliances In 2016, the then-head of Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani was quoted as saying: “Islamic movements such as Hezbollah of Lebanon and Palestinian HAMAS received inspiration and spiritual aid from Basij. This is why Iran’s flag would fly in those countries” (“Basij 'crucial in export of Revolution'”). As members of the IRGC, the Basij are tasked with the export of the regime’s ideology throughout the Islamic World. This has led the organization to have relationships with militias and insurgent groups aligned with the regime's ideology throughout Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”. They have served as an inspiration for other groups throughout the world, most notably the Colectivos, a Venezuelan paramilitary group that fills a similar role to the Basij for the Venezuelan regime. The relationship between these two groups stretches beyond simple inspiration; in 2009 the commander of the Basij, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi visited Caracas to advise Venezuelan authorities on streamlining their counterintelligence capabilities (Humire 10-11). While tasked with the duty of domestic security, the Basij have become a force to be reckoned with throughout the region, going wherever the Ayatollah calls them to.

Insurgency Overview​​ The CMA is a mostly secular, Tuareg-Arab separatist political-military coalition seeking independence for Azawad – the Tuareg Berber name for the region they inhabit across the Sahara-Sahel region – northern Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, northwestern Niger, western Libya, and southeastern Algeria. Founded in 2014 and formally merging in 2023, it was formerly composed of the Tuareg-led Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) and Arab-led Arab Movement of Azawad – Dissident (MAA-D). The CMA is in conflict with the Malian government and its supporting armed groups, and with transnational Salafi Islamist groups, including Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM and IS-GS. Allied with future JNIM co-founder Ansar Dine and briefly assisted by the Libyan government, the MNLA led the 2012 rebellion that kickstarted the Northern Mali conflict, before being sidelined by its more powerful Islamist ally. In the context of the ensuing Islamist insurgency, the MNLA formed the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) with other groups and began peace talks with the government. These continued until 2023 when war broke out between the CMA and the ruling military junta after the latter requested the UN withdraw from Mali. Controlling the city of Kidal for many years until its capture by the Wagner-supported Malian army in 2023, the CMA, now embedded in rural northern Mali, continues to play a key role in the conflict. At various times since 2012 the CMA and its components have also controlled territory across the Kidal, Gao, Timbuktu and Mopti regions of Mali. It commands thousands of forces that engage in urban and desert warfare with the government and other armed groups and enforce strategic blockades. Its political wing effectively utilises international mass media and has organised numerous domestic protests. History & Foundations Background The Tuareg, who dominate the CMA, are a traditionally Muslim, tribal, nomadic-pastoralist Amazigh (Berber) ethnic group divided into regional kels (tribal confederations). The ‘noble’ Kel Ifoghas are the dominant Tuareg group in the desert Kidal region and have played a key role in the extensive Tuareg history of rebellion against French colonial encroachment on their traditional social and political dominance over Azawad as well as Malian state mismanagement of the region. Meanwhile, Ifoghas ‘vassal’ tribes have increasingly cooperated with the Malian government and developed lucrative smuggling operations in an attempt to overcome their traditional suzerainty.1 This perceived insubordination “has been a core issue in nearly every rebellion in northern Mali since independence.” (McGregor, 2016) Secular Tuareg groups fought against French West Africa between 1916–17, the newly independent Malian state between 1962–64, and Mali and Niger between 1990–95 and 2006–09. Repeated rebellion since the ‘90s led to the fragmentation of the Tuareg nationalist movement into multiple competing armed groups, some affiliated with the Malian military, and the development of ethnocentric self-defence militias. Successive Malian governments have relied on unstable alliances with these forces to counter rebels. The Northern Mali conflict, beginning in January 2012, marked a new phase in Tuareg nationalist history. (Lecocq and Klute, 2013) Emerging from campus activism in 2010, the mixed Tuareg Azawad National Movement (MNA), reignited demands for separatism, for which its leader Moussa Ag Acharatoumane spent some weeks in prison. By October 2010, the MNA had become the intellectual-political arm of the armed National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), with Ag Acharatoumane as its spokesman. The MNLA, a secular, separatist political-military organisation, was led by Secretary-General Bilal Ag Chérif and headquartered in the northern Malian town of Kidal. Former Libyan army officer, Colonel Mohamed Ag Najim, an Idnan Tuareg, was its military chief, assisted by Malian defector Colonel Assalat Ag Habi. Idnan and Taghat Mellit Tuareg, tributary ‘vassals’ of the Ifoghas, were well represented in the movement composed primarily of: (i) former insurgents from previous Tuareg rebellions (some of whom were integrated into the Malian army); (ii) Tuareg and Arab defectors from the Malian army; and (iii) Tuareg fighters who fought alongside both Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the National Transitional Council during the 2011 Libyan Civil War. (McGregor, 2017, p. 10; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, pp. 661, 663, 666) In October 2011, an MNLA meeting took place in Kidal to decide the political-military strategy for a new rebellion. Iyad Ag Ghali, an Ifoghas Tuareg veteran of Gaddafi’s Islamic Legion and noted rebel commander since the ‘90s, nominated himself for the candidacy of secretary-general, but was rejected by its young militants. In response, Ag Ghali created the Tuareg-dominated Islamist insurgent group Ansar Dine. Ag Ghali and other Ifoghas notables were then instrumental in the development of the MNLA-Ansar Dine alliance. Separately, Ansar Dine concluded an alliance with Salafi Islamist groups including the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Four main types of violent non-state actor exist in the multi-party Malian civil war – secular rebels, jihadist groups, ethnically-oriented self-defence militias, and pro-government paramilitaries, although these are fluid categories. Achieving cooperation between the multitude of non-state armed groups and their internal factions during the conflict is difficult due to differing objectives, ideologies and ethnic compositions. Even when political agendas match, personal, tribal and clan rivalries can hinder collaboration. Moreover, competition for power intersects with competition for control of legal and illegal trade routes across the Sahel-Sahara region. To complicate the conflict further, “as in Darfur, many of the factional “splits” are intended to place the leaders of self-proclaimed armed movements in the queue for post-reconciliation appointments to government posts.” (Bencherif and Campana, 2017, pp. 120, 128; McGregor, 2017, p. 8; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018; Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, pp. 664–665) Tuareg-Islamist Rebellion (2012) January–May 2012 On January 18th 2012, the MNLA and Ansar Dine triggered the rebellion by attacking the small city of Aguelhok in northern Mali, killing numerous soldiers camped there and executing those who surrendered. Attacks on military posts in Ménaka and Tessalit quickly followed. Fighting the Malian government extensively throughout early 2012, the MNLA, alongside the militarily superior Ansar Dine, cleared northern Mali of any government military presence within weeks. Utilising the instability that followed a March 2012 coup d'état that ousted President Amadou Toumani Touré, they overran the three largest cities in northern Mali – Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu – in three days. NGOs reported high levels of violence against civilians after their capture. (Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, p. 666; Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, pp. 659, 661–662, 664) On April 6th, following the capture of Douentza in central Mali, the MNLA ceased its offensive and declared Azawad’s independence from Mali, its goals apparently having been accomplished. MNLA Secretary-General Bilal Ag Chérif was made President of the Transitional Council of the State of Azawad. (Al Arabiya, 2012) This was followed by a joint declaration on May 26th by the MNLA and Ansar Dine announcing the formation of the Islamic Republic of Azawad. (BBC News, 2012) June–December 2012 Ag Chérif’s presidency was brief, however, as conflict over the future of the Azawadi state broke out in June 2012 between the Tuareg nationalist MNLA and the Islamist coalition of Ansar Dine, MOJWA and AQIM. The MNLA and Ansar Dine largely avoided direct confrontation and violence against civilians in the Kidal region in 2012 as both groups drew from Tuareg tribes and clans in the region. This is bar one incident on June 8th where the MNLA encouraged local women and youth to protest against Ansar Dine’s implementation of their radical interpretation of the Sharia, where a few people were wounded. In Gao, many anti-independence Songhaï and Arabs rallied to the ethnically diverse MOJWA2 following MNLA-perpetrated atrocities.3 As well as creating a perceived need for communal self-defence, these had stoked existing ethnic rivalries that MOJWA exploited for recruitment. Notably, they reactivated narratives from the ‘90s civil war between Tuareg rebels and the Songhaï Ganda Koy (Lords of the Land) militia of the persecution of “black” sedentary communities, including Songhaï, Fulani and Ikelan (black ex-slaves in the traditional Tuareg order), by “white” nomad Tuareg. On June 27th, MOJWA captured the city after clashing with the MNLA, leaving 20+ dead and 40+ wounded, including Ag Chérif. (AFP, 2012) Further clashes led to the capture of Ansongo and Ménaka in November. Lacking the military capabilities to confront AQIM, the dominant jihadist group in the Timbuktu region, the MNLA retreated to areas outside their control. The first incarnation of the Arab Movement of Azawad (MAA), founded two days after the Azawadi independence declaration, claiming to consist of 500 mostly Arab fighters opposed to Tuareg and jihadist domination of Timbuktu, had occupied part of the region on April 26th before withdrawing the next day without incident, at AQIM’s request, to avoid civilian deaths. The group later split into a number of factions, including the pro-rebel MAA-Dissident and the pro-government MAA-Tabankort. AQIM captured Timbuktu on June 28th and Léré on November 28th without major violent confrontation. Islamists groups had expelled the MNLA from all major cities in southern Azawad by July, and the rest of its urban territory by December. Despite mass defections to the Islamists for better pay since the independence declaration, and the formation of the Azawad Popular Front (FPA) splinter group4, the MNLA sustained control of large areas of rural desert in northeastern Mali. (Lecocq and Klute, 2013, p. 431; Bencherif and Campana, 2017; McGregor, 2017, p. 10; Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, pp. 669–671) MNLA/CMA-Government Peace Talks (2013-2019) By 2013, the MNLA had renounced its internationally unrecognised claim to Azawadi independence, shifted its aims to autonomy for northern Mali, and began peace talks with the Malian government. It began supporting French and Chadian forces in restoring state authority to Islamist-controlled cities in the north and in operations against their mountain strongholds, particularly with intelligence, while still opposing the Malian army. In response, Islamists increasingly utilised remote violence, orchestrated a series of suicide bombings against MNLA checkpoints and bases, and murdered members of General Ag Gamou’s family, beginning a cycle of Tuareg-Fulani ethnic violence. (McGregor, 2016) A fierce international campaign of airstrikes forced many Islamists into the Ifoghas’ Mountains and across neighbouring borders, severely reducing their access to funds with which to pay their fighters, leading many to return to the MNLA. Others however, embedded themselves in local communities. After capturing several important towns in the Kidal Region, the MNLA initially refused to disarm or cede control to the Malian government, but in June, signed a peace deal that permitted the military to return to some cities. This led to both pro-MNLA and pro-army demonstrations in Kidal. The deal collapsed at the end of the year after the MNLA claimed the government failed to respect its terms and opened fire on unarmed protestors. Tuareg rebels clashed multiple times with the Malian army between 2013-2014, notably in mid-May 2014 during a prime ministerial visit to Kidal. This event precipitated the creation of pro-government militias including GATIA and MAA-Tabankort (see Relations & Alliances). (Al Jazeera, 2013; Reuters, 2013; McGregor, 2016; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, p. 667; Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, pp. 665, 671, 673) Meanwhile in recaptured Kidal, the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) was formed in a May 2013 merger of the High Council of Azawad (HCA) and Azawad Islamic Movement (MIA). Founded by the amenokal (moral-spiritual chief) of the Ifoghas, Mohamed Ag Intalla, the political-military organisation was led by his brother, Alghabass Ag Intalla, former high-ranking member of the MNLA and Ansar Dine. It absorbed many former Ansar Dine members despite a rivalry between the Ag Intalla brothers and Ansar Dine/JNIM founder Iyad Ag Ghali over the Ifoghas leadership. (Bencherif and Campana, 2017, pp. 125, 129) As a means of facilitating peace talks with the government in 2014, most armed groups in northern Mali agreed to join either the rebel Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) or the pro-government Plateforme coalition, while Islamist groups were excluded. However, political negotiations served to exacerbate intra and inter-communal tensions in northern Mali. This engendered greater factionalisation, precipitated new local conflicts, and created more self-defence groups, further increasing the level of insecurity. Although initially composed of many groups, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) consistently maintained three key members: the Tuareg-dominated (i) National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and (ii) High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) and (iii) the Arab Movement of Azawad – Dissident (MAA-D). The MAA-D consisted mainly of Bérabiche Arabs from Ber and Timbuktu, many of whom were Malian army deserters, including MAA-D military chief Colonel Hussein Ould al-Moctar ‘Goulam’. Other leaders include suspected drug traffickers Dina Ould Aya and Mohamed Ould Aweynat. Months of tense negotiations produced the Algiers Accord in June 2015, which sought to decentralise Mali, integrate former rebels into the army, and develop the northern economy, but it only widened the gap between its parties.5 Bamako’s strategy of instrumentalising tribal/clan antagonisms led to a number of groups leaving the CMA, many perceiving the alliance as promoting further violence rather than reconciliation. These include the Coalition for the People of Azawad (CPA), Congress for Justice in Azawad (CJA), and Coordination of Patriotic Resistance Movements and Fronts II (CMFPR-II). The multi-ethnic CPA, led by former MNLA head of external relations Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh, departed over the supposedly hardline position of Bilal Ag Chérif in government negotiations, while the CJA is almost entirely composed of ex-MNLA Kel Antessar Tuareg based around Timbuktu and Taoudeni.6 The CMFPR-II, made up of sedentary Songhaï, Bambara, Fulani, and Ikelan tribesmen from the Gao region, also left the coalition. Its leader, Ibrahim Abba Kantao, head of the Ganda Izo (Sons of the Land) self-defence movement, split from the pro-government CMFPR in January 2014 and had joined the CMA to avoid being left out of negotiations, despite Kantao being against the partition of Mali and many members viewing the Tuareg clans as rivals for resources and political authority. Pushed through by a frustrated international community, the accord is “widely regarded in the north as an imposed agreement that does not address the often subtle and deep-rooted grievances that fuel the ongoing conflict.” (McGregor, 2017, p. 8) Fighting continued due to repeated coups and constant violence, mostly involving jihadists, halting progress, preventing disarmament, and ravaging the economy. (Reuters, 2022) In an ongoing assassination war between the CMA and Islamist groups, the MNLA has suffered the greatest.7 (McGregor, 2017, p. 10) Nonetheless, “armed politics” was said to have taken the place of civil war in the Tuareg-government conflict by December 2015. (Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, p. 665) In 2016, Mohamed Ag Intalla suggested engaging in talks with “Malian jihadists” (i.e. JNIM) in exchange for them helping “get rid of jihadists from elsewhere” (i.e. IS-GS). (McGregor, 2017, p. 9) In September 2016, MNA founder and ex-MNLA spokesman Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, a Daoussahak Tuareg, split from the MNLA and founded the Ménaka-based Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA) with Chamanamas Tuareg, Colonel Assalat Ag Habi. Most members were from these clans. The unilateral management of the CMA and the predominance of the recurring Imghad-Ifoghas conflict over Kidal were cited as reasons for their departure. The MSA would itself split along clan lines in 2017 into the MSA-D and MSA-C. Later that year, the CPA, CJA, CMFPR-II, MSA-C and FPA, along with other MNLA/MAA splinter and CMA/Plateforme dissident groups, formed the rival Coordination of Inclusivity Movements (CMI). (European Council on Foreign Relations, 2019) The CMA and Plateforme (mainly GATIA) continued to clash throughout 2016. In spite of this, Ag Acharatoumane managed to broker the organisation of joint security patrols between the groups in September. A suicide bombing in Gao on January 18th 2017 temporarily halted the implementation of mixed patrols between the CMA, Plateforme and the Malian army. (Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, p. 673) An increase in violence from 2016 onwards, mainly attributed to IS-GS commander Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui,8 against all parties to the conflict led the MSA-D to openly collaborate with French, Nigerien and GATIA forces on security and in aggressive operations against the group. In response, IS-GS attacked Daoussahak and Imghad communities. Meanwhile a number of Daoussahak notables accused Ag Acharatoumane of using GATIA to target those opposed to his increase in authority in the community, and rejoined the CMA with their fighters. The remainder of the MSA-D then joined Plateforme in July 2019. (McGregor, 2016, 2017, pp. 8–13; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, pp. 670–672, 676) CSP-PSD Formation & Breakdown (2020-present) In early 2020, a reconstituted Malian army, now integrated with forces from Plateforme and the CMA, began deploying to the Kidal and Timbuktu regions. They were met with small anti-state, pro-independence protests in Kidal city. DDR discussions between the government and the CMA nonetheless continued into 2021. The CMA and Plateforme also began discussions to reconcile their differences over the 2015 Algiers Accord, and in May 2021, agreed to form a new coalition later joined by the CMI – the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) – in order to mark their reconciliation, implement the accord, and jointly combat insecurity in northern Mali. In August 2020, a military coup led by Colonel Assimi Goïta forced Malian President Keïta to resign following months of mass anti-government protests over a recent election widely perceived as fraudulent. A transition to military rule quickly followed and was completed when Goïta assumed the presidency in mid-2021, a role he holds to this day. West African regional bloc ECOWAS imposed sweeping sanctions against Mali in January 2022 after the ruling military junta announced a five-year transition timeline. These were largely lifted in July 2022 after the Goïta administration adopted a two-year transition period before presidential elections scheduled for February 2024. However, in September 2023, this was extended and the election indefinitely postponed, while protests planned in response were banned. Tensions between the interim authorities and their international partners grew as hundreds of mercenaries from Russian-funded private military contractor Wagner Group were deployed across Mali and immediately began supporting the military in fighting JNIM at the end of 2021. Malian and Wagner counter-insurgency forces were swiftly implicated in a new wave of serious human rights violations that continue to the present day, including numerous massacres, extrajudicial executions and incidents of sexual violence. One massacre of 500 civilians in March 2022 could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, the UN suggested. The government suspended the broadcasts of French media outlets RFI and France24 for reporting on these exactions. In mid-February 2022, France and its European partners announced a full troop withdrawal within six months, citing Wagner’s presence. After thousands protested in Bamako against French presence and ECOWAS sanctions in April 2022, the transitional government withdrew from defence agreements with France and announced further political, economic and security cooperation with Russia. On Malian Independence Day on September 22th, hundreds marched again, carrying Russian flags and chanting anti-UN slogans. Jihadists attacked CSP members the HCUA, MSA-D and GATIA on multiple occasions between 2021 and 2023 in the Gao and Ménaka regions, killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands of civilians. CSP forces supported the government in an offensive against IS-GS in the Ménaka region in June 2022. In August, the government and CSP met to address the stalled implementation of the Algiers Accord and continue DDR talks after the CMA decried its abandonment by the transitional authorities. Although they agreed to integrate 26,000 CSP fighters into the national army over a multi-year period, and senior CSP military officers into the military hierarchy, the CMA criticised the lack of clarity around the role of CSP group leaders in future integrated units. (Ahmed, 2022) Relations between the CSP-PSD and the post-coup Goïta administration sharply deteriorated thereafter. In December, the CSP-PSD withdrew from peace talks in response to the Malian military junta’s alleged refusal to negotiate or implement the 2015 agreement, and lack of action over the hundreds killed and displaced by jihadist and state violence in Ménaka, Gao and Timbuktu. (Reuters, 2022) NGOs suggested 2022 would be the deadliest year in Mali since 2012, owing to such violence and the impunity of those responsible. After France suspended development aid to Mali, Bamako banned French and French-funded NGOs and tightened state control of the rest. Intense fighting between rival jihadist groups IS-GS and JNIM over control of the north in the Ménaka, Gao and Timbuktu regions between September 2022 and July 2023 killed and displaced many civilians. While inter-jihadist violence abated in August 2023, both groups continued targeting civilians, in addition to pro-government and UN forces, and occasionally CSP members. After the CMA called on young Tuareg to join the fight against IS-GS in Gao in November 2022, more than 400 CSP vehicles gathered in the Kidal region the following March in preparation for operations against the group. JNIM founder Iyad Ag Ghali even toured northern Mali in early 2023, meeting local notables and CSP leaders to discuss cooperation against IS-GS. Throughout 2023, the interim authorities repeatedly blocked CSP attempts to implement the accord’s international mediation mechanism by declining Algerian proposals to host meetings. In February, the CMA’s three constituent groups formally merged into a single entity, a priority of Alghabass Ag Intalla since at least 2019. (Laplace, 2023) After the CMA fired at a military aircraft that flew over its stronghold of Kidal in April, the army arrested 12 CMA members in a rare operation in the Ménaka region. In mid-2023, Goïta consolidated his power through a cabinet reshuffle and a new constitution approved in a questionable referendum. The CSP, which did not allow the vote to proceed in their stronghold city of Kidal, lost two of the four ministries it held to loyalists. When the junta then requested the UN withdraw from Mali and transfer all its bases to the government by year’s end, major fighting erupted between the CMA and the military, now supported by Wagner, for the first time since 2015, over previously UN-held areas in the Timbuktu region. Wagner mercenaries committed numerous war crimes against civilians during this time, while the army launched airstrikes on CMA positions in the Kidal region. (ADF, 2023) From late 2023 into 2024, civilians in the Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao regions were repeated targets of state violence, including airstrikes, drone strikes and the burning of IDP encampments. In September, the CSP accused the junta and Wagner of multiple ceasefire breaches and repeated human rights violations. Later that month, the CMA issued the first ‘Azawadian National Army’ communication, declaring it at war with the junta and calling on civilians to “contribute to the war effort with the aim of defending and protecting the homeland, and thus regaining control of the entire Azawadian national territory.” (AfricaNews, 2023) Ben Bella of the CMA claimed fighters from Niger, Algeria and Libya were coming to their aid. (Ibrahim, 2023) Plateforme, including the MSA-D and most of GATIA, withdrew from the CSP over the declaration of war against Mali, while a GATIA faction led by Fahad Ag Almahmoud remained. Moussa Ag Acharatoumane claimed the conflict only benefited jihadists. (Baché, 2023) As the UN hastily withdrew between September and October, the CMA/CSP attacked Malian and Wagner personnel and temporarily seized a number of military camps and posts in the Kidal, Gao, Timbuktu and Mopti regions. The CMA fired upon various Malian military aircraft attempting to capture bases in Kidal and Gao recently departed by MINUSMA, successfully shooting down multiple, including the Malian airforce’s only remaining Russian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jet. Unconfirmed reports suggest this may have been achieved with rare American FIM-43 ‘Redeye’ MANPADs likely smuggled into Mali from Libya or Chad. (Abdul, 2023) Following its seizure of the town of Anefis in Kidal from the CSP in October, the army pressed onto the regional capital of Kidal, capturing the CMA stronghold with Wagner support on November 15th after clashes that occurred when the UN left their base earlier than planned. Hundreds of soldiers and police were then sent to enforce order, while GATIA leader General El Hadj Ag Gamou was appointed Governor of Kidal by Goïta’s military junta. Both CSP and jihadist groups still remain implanted in rural areas of the region. In December, the CSP began blockading the major northern cities of Kidal, Ménaka, Gao, Timbuktu and Taoudeni, now under government control, and the roads leading to Mauritania, Algeria and Niger. JNIM had already been blockading Timbuktu on-and-off since August in opposition to the Malian army’s deployment. On December 20th, the military recaptured Aguelhok, the only remaining vacated UN camp captured by the CSP. In January 2024, accusing Algeria of interfering in its affairs, the interim authorities then terminated the 2015 Algiers Accord and launched a new national peace initiative, which the CSP quickly rejected as sidelining international mediation. It claimed the junta’s decision “totally calls into question all [the] principles” enshrined in the accord, including the unity and sovereignty of Mali, and called on its components to “review and update their respective objectives to face this new situation.” (Jeune Afrique, 2024) Alongside near-constant jihadist attacks, fighting for control of the vast regions of northern Mali will thus continue for the foreseeable future. (International Crisis Group, 2024) Objectives & Ideology The CMA, and its main constituent the MNLA, are mostly secular, Arab-Tuareg nationalist political-military organisations seeking independence from or autonomy within Mali for Azawad. The MNA/MNLA was the first Tuareg separatist movement to explicitly declare its objective was independence,9 adopting a national flag. The CMA includes fighters from ethnic groups across the Sahara-Sahel region, including Amazigh (Tuareg), Arabs, Fulani and Songhaï. MNLA representatives asserted the Saharan peoples’ right to self-determination given their 50-year oppression under the Malian state and its anarchy following the 2012 coup. It pledged to restore security in the face of terrorist and criminal networks and build democratic state institutions, and rather cryptically, to “respect all the colonial frontiers that separate Azawad from its neighbours.” (Al Arabiya, 2012; FRANCE 24, 2012b; Lecocq and Klute, 2013, p. 430) Approach to Resistance The MNLA/CMA engages in urban and desert warfare as their primary methods of violent resistance. This has been supplemented by the occasional use of protests and road blockades. Unlike many Islamist groups, they eschew the use of suicide bombings and remote violence (landmines, IEDs, rocket attacks) and do not regularly utilise guerilla warfare. (Bencherif, Campana and Stockemer, 2023, p. 671) They have engaged in peace talks with the government and its allies in various capacities on and off since 2013. At the end of 2022, having withdrawn from peace talks, the CSP-PSD said they would only return to the table if talks were held under international mediation in a neutral country. (Reuters, 2022) Military & Political Abilities Political At its peak in 2012, the MNLA, along with its Islamist partners, controlled 800,000 sq. km. of Mali (two-thirds of its territory). Gao, the largest city they had conquered, was the self-declared capital of Azawad. Following its recapture, Kidal remained the stronghold of the MNLA and then the CMA in the years following. The young, educated MNLA political wing, represented by then Paris-based intellectual and propagandist, Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, had significant media experience and expressed their demands across the English, French and Arabic-language Internet using the language of human rights and the indigenous right to self-determination. The MNLA’s tactic of projecting itself as a pro-Western, anti-AQIM secular force in the hope of receiving support from France and its allies mostly failed and its resources shrank. Although it successfully organised protests for Azawadi self-determination across Northern Mali in November 2011, the MNLA lost political legitimacy in its territory in 2012 as it was unable to develop administrative structures or maintain justice and security due to its ill-disciplined fighters destroying popular support through atrocities. In southern Mali, the general view is that the CMA is “feudal, anti-republican and anti-democratic.” (McGregor, 2016) The CMA presidency currently rotates every six months between the leaders of its constituent groups. CMA President and MAA-D leader Sidi Ibrahim Ould Sidati was assassinated in Bamako, Mali in April 2021. His successor in the MAA-D, Ibrahim Ould Handa, is the current president of the CMA, having succeeded the HCUA’s Alghabass Ag Intalla in July 2023. Upon their formal merger in 2023, a CMA representative expressed a desire to move to a fixed presidency structure. The current CMA press secretary is Ilad Ag Mohamed. (Lecocq and Klute, 2013, pp. 430–431; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, pp. 665–666; Laplace, 2023; Monteau, 2023) Military In June 2012, MNLA military chief Colonel Mohamed Ag Najim was claimed to be able to draw on a force of 9,000-10,000 across northern Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and Niger (according to unverified MNLA sources). A reported 2,000 were stationed at the airport in Gao training young volunteers in military discipline and weapons use, and were in possession of large quantities of submachine guns of various calibres, and 30 functional tanks, and in the process of repairing 10 more and a helicopter. (FRANCE 24, 2012a) Despite many Malian and Libyan army veterans in its ranks, the MNLA has performed poorly on the battlefield. (McGregor, 2017, p. 10) The majority of CMA arms and ammunition have been obtained from Malian stockpiles. Arsenals captured during previous rebellions were supplemented with materiel from army deserters, officials and soldiers selling weapons, and attacks on military bases, including the MNLA’s early 2012 capture of Aguelhok, Gao and Timbuktu, and May 2014 raid on Kidal, where 50 new EU-provided 4x4 vehicles, 12 armoured vehicles and several tonnes of ammunition and weapons were captured. Tuareg fighters also brought a considerable amount of ammunition, small arms, light weapons, vehicles, and heavy weaponry to Mali from both government and revolutionary stockpiles after the end of the First Libyan Civil War. These included AK-pattern rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns, vehicle-mounted ZU-23-2-pattern anti-aircraft auto-cannon, and mortar projectiles and artillery rockets (sometimes without launchers).10 This enabled the MNLA-Islamist coalition to fight a larger, more intense insurgency in 2012 than in previous conflicts. Materiel analysis has shown small amounts of ammunition have also been sourced from military stockpiles in Algeria, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire, as well as a number of other west African countries. These are likely obtained in limited numbers by individuals and small criminal networks. The CMA also benefited from the proliferation of arms in non-state actor possession in northern Mali after the government armed pro-government militias and self-defence units. However, much of the heavy materiel was lost to Islamist forces in 2012 or destroyed by the Malian military and its supporters in the years following. Nonetheless, the abundance of professional smugglers and poorly accounted for arms in the southern Libyan Fezzan region continues to provide new materiel for combatants in northern Mali in spite of the erosion of Tuareg control over traditional trade routes since 2014. (Anders, 2015, pp. 171–178) International Relations & Potential Alliances Local/Regional Although briefly allied to Ansar Dine, the MNLA/CMA has repeatedly clashed with the Salafi Islamist group and its affiliates, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness & Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), Al-Mourabitoun, Boko Haram, and Ansaru, since 2012. The CMA continues to clash with Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), a MOJWA/Al-Mourabitoun splinter group formed in 2015, and Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), the product of a 2017 merger of Ansar Dine, AQIM, MOJWA and Al-Mourabitoun. JNIM, led by Iyad Ag Ghali, is a mix of Tuareg, Arabs, Fulani and Songhaï, while IS-GS is mostly Arabs and Fulani. Although once allied, the CMA is frequently in conflict with the pro-government Plateforme coalition of armed groups, of which the Imghad Tuareg and Allies Self-Defence Group (GATIA), is the most powerful. GATIA is a paramilitary ethnic militia composed mostly of ‘vassal’ Imghad Tuareg locked in a struggle with the ‘noble’ Ifoghas. Many members are Malian/Libyan army veterans, including its leader, Malian General El Hadj Ag Gamou, now governor of Kidal. Plateforme also includes the Arab Movement of Azawad – Tabankort (MAA-T), dominated by wealthy Gao-based Lamhar Arab businessmen – many prominent drug traffickers11 and former key MOJWA military and civilian officials; the Coordination of Patriotic Resistance Movements and Fronts I (CMFPR-I), a coalition of Songhaï and Fulani self-defence movements from the Gao and Mopti regions; and the Movement for National Defence (MDP), a Fulani self-defence militia led by Liberian Civil War veteran of Charles Taylor’s forces, and one-time MNLA member, Hama Founé Diallo. Before their withdrawal in late-2023, many rebels viewed the deployment of United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) forces as providing quiet support for government efforts to recapture the north through proxies including GATIA. Equally, others viewed the UN presence as vital to security. (McGregor, 2017, pp. 8–9, 11–13; Desgrais, Guichaoua and Lebovich, 2018, pp. 672–673) International Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi directly supported the MNLA until 2012. The CMA continues to receive informal support from Tuareg living across Mali’s immediate borders and from the international Tuareg diaspora. The main international opponent of the CMA remains the Malian government. French and Chadian forces, which led Malian counterinsurgency operations from 2012–2022, largely managed to avoid confronting the CMA and sometimes even collaborated with them. They were replaced by Wagner Group mercenaries supported by Russian and Turkish forces, following Goïta’s second coup in 2021, who engaged in major fighting with the coalition. Despite CMA opposition to their replacement, Wagner’s weakness, brutality against civilians, and focus on fighting the Islamist insurgency has served to empower the movement. Meanwhile, since 2023, Mali has increased cooperation on security and collective sanctions evasion with neighbouring West African states Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea, all military-junta led following recent coups. This culminated in the first three’s creation of the Alliance of Sahel States in September, and the formation of a three-state confederation in December, with a stabilisation fund, investment bank, and apparently in the future, a common currency. However, given they are all facing serious domestic insecurity problems primarily caused by Islamist insurgencies, they would realistically be unable to assist one another in the event of an international conflict, something ECOWAS has threatened. In early 2024, as the MINUSMA withdrawal was nearing completion, the new confederation withdrew from ECOWAS over their respective post-coup sanctions. (International Crisis Group, 2024)

Introduction & Overview The Sinjar Resistance Units, also known as the YBŞ or the Yekîneyên Berxwedana Sengalê, is an ethnic Yazidi militia which was formed in 2014 (Al-Tamimi, 2021b) in order to protect the Yazidi community in Iraq following attacks upon their community by radical Islamist insurgents. As the second largest Yazidi militia after the HPÊ (Êzîdxan Protection Force), it has primarily been active in fighting against ISIL (Paraszczuk, 2015). Being a founding member of the Sinjar Alliance, a comprehensive command structure uniting all Yazidi forces, the YBŞ works alongside its all-female counterparts in the YJÊ ( Êzîdxan Womens Units - Much like the YPJ and YPG) and they both operate under the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and collaborate with the People's Defence Forces (HPG) of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (Tomasevic, 2016). Some segments of the YBŞ later integrated into the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) as part of an effort to assimilate into the regular Iraqi Armed Forces, and these units are formally designated as the 80th Regiment (Al-Tamimi, 2021a). History & Foundations Formed in response to waves of attacks aimed at the Yazidi community by ISIL in Iraq, the group took part in several major offensives against ISIL, such as the August 2014 Northern Iraq offensive -- in which they killed at least 22 IS fighters and destroyed several armoured fighting vehicles in the locality of the Sinjar Mountains (where they primarily operate from) (Haaretz, 2014). The group received training from their Kurdish counterparts in the YPG and were subsequently sent back to the Sinjar Mountains' frontline zone in order to combat ISIL and protect their community (Reuters, 2014). Sheikh Khairy Khedr, the group's commander, was killed in battle during the clashes in October 2014 after being struck by a mortar shell (Su, 2014). The YBS also participated in the founding of the Sinjar Alliance, which is an all-Yazidi organisation which aims to establish democratic confederalism within an autonomous Yazidi region in Sinjar (ÊzîdîPress, 2015). Under the Sinjar Alliance, the YBS took part in the November 2015 Sinjar offensive (KurdischeNachrichten, 2015) which succeeded in the joint Yazidi-Kurd forces capturing Sinjar and Gabara and 600+ ISIL casualties (Hanna and Payne, 2015). In an agreement with the central Iraqi government, the YBS joined the Popular Mobilisation Forces, also known as the “80th Regiment” (Al-Tamimi, 2021a) and the central government also demanded that the YBS withdraw from the Sinjar mountain areas which they had been stationed in. The Iraqi government requested this action to eliminate what they viewed as the PKK's presence in the Sinjar area. However, the YBS and other associated groups declined, asserting that they had no affiliation with the PKK (Al-Tamimi, 2021a). In 2018, Zeki Shingali, a prominent Yazidi Kurdish leader affiliated with the PKK, was assassinated by a Turkish airstrike following his attendance at a memorial service for the victims of the Sinjar massacre perpetrated by ISIL (ANF, 2018). Objectives & Ideology The group has a broadly left-wing ideological basis similar to many other ethnic minority organisations in the region such as the YPG and the YPJ which it is similar to in terms of both ideology and structure. It holds a belief in Yazidi regionalism which promotes an increase in political power, influence and self-determination for the Yazidi people in the Sinjar region. It aims to gain strength in its ethnically homogenous region (Sinjar) and this occupies an ideological space similar to nationalism albeit on a much smaller and more local/regional scale. The group also subscribes to Democratic Confederalism much like the aforementioned PKK and its associated organisations. Democratic confederalism is a political concept first theorised by the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan. It focuses on a confederation based upon principles which are centred around autonomy, direct democracy, political ecology, feminism, multiculturalism and self-defence/government. Military/Political Abilities The group has fairly limited military abilities due to its small recruitment base as well as equipment inventory. With a reported membership of around 2000+ members (Paraszczuk, 2015), the group is fairly limited in operations and cannot conduct large-scale ground offences much like its Kurdish counterparts in the YPG and the broader SDF coalition, which numbers around 100,000 members (Mahmud, 2021). The group is frequently seen being armed with locally available AK-47s and the group is also known to possess vehicle mounted HMGs (Heavy machine guns) also known as technicals. The group has also received airstrike support on any operations it has been on from the United States Air Force which has greatly bolstered its ability to conduct any sort of offensive operations no matter how limited. In the 2015 Sinjar Offensive the US Air Force conducted over 250 airstrikes during the week-long operation including the preparatory strikes conducted against ISIL targets (Warren, 2015). Approach to Resistance Although the group utilises violence in order to protect its people in the Sinjar region and to conduct operations against ISIL, it is not a necessarily violent organisation unlike the aforementioned PKK. The group does not conduct offensive operations without support from other groups and it also does not conduct terrorist acts on foreign or domestic soil. As it is effectively an ethnic militia organisation which is dedicated to the protection of the Yazidi people in the Sinjar mountain region it is currently occupied with defending, policing and securing the region and it operates checkpoints within the region. (Aziz, 2020) International Relations & Potential Alliances Due to both the groups small physical size and stature within local politics it has to rely upon alliances and agreements in order to remain in the picture. As a part of the Sinjar Alliance the group is allied to the Êzîdxan Women's Units and it was also allied to the Êzîdxan Protection Force up until March 2017 when the Êzîdxan Protection Force left the Sinjar alliance and joined the Kurdish Peshmerga. The YBS is also a part of the Popular Mobilization Forces in a Unit designation known as the 80th Regiment (Al-Tamimi, 2021a). The Popular Mobilisation Forces is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organisation which is composed of approximately 67 different armed factions consisting of mainly Shia Muslims but also includes wide numbers of Sunni Muslim groups, Christian groups and also the Yazidi organisations such as the YBS.