I. Key general developments in the region

Chapter:

6. Armed conflict and peace processes in the Middle East and North Africa

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2021

Author(s):

Ian Davis

There were seven states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with active armed conflicts in 2020 (the same as in 2017–19): Egypt (low-intensity, subnational armed conflict), Iraq (internationalized civil war), Israel (low-intensity, extrastate armed conflict), Libya (internationalized civil war), Syria (internationalized civil war), Turkey (low-intensity, extrastate and subnational armed conflict) and Yemen (major internationalized civil war).¹ All the armed conflicts had lower conflict-related fatalities in 2020 compared with in 2019; overall the reduction was about 35 per cent as a result of fatalities being almost halved in Syria (see table 6.1). Except for Libya, this was the second consecutive yearly reduction in all of the region’s conflict fatalities, which have reduced by almost 70 per cent since 2017. With conflict-related fatalities in Syria dropping below 10 000 in 2020, the war in Yemen remained the region’s only major armed conflict. Developments in each of the armed conflicts and any related peace processes are covered in subsequent sections: Iraq, Syria and Turkey (section II); the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (section III); Egypt and Libya (section IV); and Yemen (section V).