Library Note Recent Developments in the Middle East and North Africa This Library Note provides background material on recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Given the size of the region and the speed with which developments are unfolding in many countries, this Note is not exhaustive but provides a brief summary of events in selected countries, including Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. This Note adds to and updates information provided in House of Lords Library Note, Recent Developments in Syria, the Middle East and North Africa, LLN 2013/017. James Tobin Emily Haves Eren Waitzman Samuel White 15 September 2015 LLN 2015/030 House of Lords Library Notes are compiled for the benefit of Members of the House of Lords and their personal staff, to provide impartial, politically balanced briefing on subjects likely to be of interest to Members of the Lords. Authors are available to discuss the contents of the Notes with the Members and their staff but cannot advise members of the general public. Any comments on Library Notes should be sent to the Head of Research Services, House of Lords Library, London SW1A 0PW or emailed to [email protected]. Table of Contents 1. Syria ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Iraq .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 3. Tunisia ............................................................................................................................................................ 9 4. Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories ................................................................................................ 11 5. Iran ................................................................................................................................................................ 14 6. Lebanon ....................................................................................................................................................... 17 7. Saudi Arabia ................................................................................................................................................ 20 8. Libya .............................................................................................................................................................. 23 9. Yemen .......................................................................................................................................................... 27 10. Egypt ........................................................................................................................................................... 31 House of Lords Library Note I Recent Developments in the Middle East and North Africa 1 1. Syria The conflict in Syria has now been raging for over four years. Syrian government forces continue to battle a range of insurgent groups, some of whom have also been fighting each other, and during the course of the fighting hopes of a resolution have ebbed and flowed as one faction or another has appeared to gain the upper hand. Currently, the government troops of President Bashar Al-Assad, and backed by support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, control most of the major cities in western Syria, including the capital Damascus.1 Government forces have suffered a number of military and territorial losses in 2015, which include the provincial capital of Idlib in the north-west, the final regime position within which fell on 9 September 2015.2 However, US analysts Christopher Blanchard et al argue that despite these losses, “the Assad government has shown no sign of imminent collapse of an intention to leave power”.3 The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) controls large, but sparsely populated, swathes of territory in northeast and central Syria, including a number of areas adjacent to the country’s borders with Turkey and Iraq. ISIL too has suffered a number of losses in 2015, however, notably to Kurdish forces backed by coalition airstrikes (which have not involved UK warplanes), and Blanchard et al note that new offences launched by ISIL in May and June 2015 have brought it into conflict with both government and anti-government forces.4 Moderate armed opposition groups, including the Free Syrian Army/Southern Front, continue to fight government and ISIL forces, and have made gains in 2015 in the southern cities of Deraa and Quneitra, seizing the Syrian government’s largest military base in Deraa in June 2015.5 It is also notable that, following fierce conflict between moderate and Islamist groups opposed to the Assad regime in a number of areas, in Idlib a coalition of rebel groups which included elements from Jabhat al Nusra/the Nusra front—a group allied with Al Qaeda and hostile to ISIL—came together in a single command known as ‘Jaysh al Fatah’ to force pro- government forces from the city.6 Yet opposition to the Assad regime remains fractured at best, and as noted by Sebastian Usher, Arab Affairs Correspondent for the BBC, rebel groups in many areas continue to be as opposed to each other as they are the Syrian regime.7 1.1 Humanitarian Impact and Refugees The Syrian conflict has had a devastating impact on the population of the country. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reports that 12.2 million people, out of a total population of 22.85 million, are in need of humanitarian assistance.8 UNOCHA estimates that 7.6 million people have been internally displaced in Syria as a result of the violence, and a further 4.1 million have fled the country.9 The result, according the European Commission, is the largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.10 1 Christopher Blanchard et al, Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and US Response, Congressional Research Service, 15 July 2014, p 1. 2 BBC News, ‘Syria Conflict: Rebels Seize Key Idlib Airbase’, 9 September 2015. 3 Christopher Blanchard et al, Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and US Response, Congressional Research Service, 15 July 2014, p 1. 4 ibid. 5 BBC News, ‘Syria: Mapping the Conflict’, 10 July 2015. 6 Christopher Blanchard et al, Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and US Response, Congressional Research Service, 15 July 2014, p 14. 7 BBC News, ‘Syria: Mapping the Conflict’, 10 July 2015. 8 UNOCHA, ‘Syrian Arab Republic’, accessed 10 September 2015. 9 ibid. 10 European Commission, Syria Crisis, August 2015. 2 House of Lords Library Note I Recent Developments in the Middle East and North Africa Impact on Neighbouring Countries The majority of those who have fled Syria have done so to neighbouring countries in the region. The largest numbers of Syrian refugees have gone to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, as illustrated by the graph below: Number of Syrian Refugees in Neighbouring Countries (Source: UN, ‘Overview: 2015 Syria Response Plan and 2015–2016 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan’, 18 December 2014) As explored in other sections of this briefing, the impact of this influx of refugees on many of these countries, particularly Lebanon and Jordan, has been profound. UK Response The UK government’s approach to the issue of refugees from Syria has changed since the beginning of the crisis. Where previously UK efforts had focused on providing aid to Syria’s neighbouring states, in January 2014 the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced the establishment of the ‘Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme’, to “to relocate some of the most vulnerable refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria”.11 The scheme is separate from the UNHCR resettlement programme, of which the UK is not a part. By June 2015, 216 people (including dependants) had come to the UK under the scheme.12 The government states that around 5,000 Syrians have been granted asylum in the UK since the beginning of the crisis.13 However, in response to the growing crisis, criticism about the scope of the resettlement scheme, and recent developments including the number of Syrian refugees (and many others) making often perilous crossings of the Mediterranean sea and land routes into Europe which have dominated news headlines in recent weeks, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, made a statement to the House of Commons on 7 September 2015. In that statement, Mr Cameron 11 HC Hansard, 29 January 2014, cols 863–4. 12 House of Commons Library, Syrian Refugees and the UK, 8 September 2015, 06805, p 8. 13 HC Hansard, 7 September 2015, cols 23–7. House of Lords Library Note I Recent Developments in the Middle East and North Africa 3 announced a significant expansion of the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme for Syrian nationals, whereby “Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this parliament”.14 Noting that the UK is the second largest bilateral donor of aid to the Syrian conflict (after the US), and the government had recently committed a further £100 million, taking the total contribution to over £1 billion15, Mr Cameron said it would remain the UK’s policy to offer resettlement directly to those in Syrian and in neighbouring countries rather than to those who had travelled to Europe: […] Britain will play its part alongside our other European partners. But because we are not part of the EU’s borderless Schengen agreement or its relocation