Conflict Expansion to Cities

become a source of vulnerability and a key driver in the perpetration of armed conflict. Regions already struggling with poverty, weak political institutions and conflict have been further destabilised by the growing demands and social complexity stemming from sprawling urban areas. Far from being solely a local issue, unmanaged urban growth has been recognised as a key global challenge within the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. The pressures unleashed by this process are heaviest upon poor countries. They are, however, potentially devastating in areas facing armed conflict. In sub-Saharan Africa, which hosts half of the UN’s peacekeeping operations, the urban population will grow by 132% between 2019 and 2043, when it is forecast to surpass the 1 billion mark. Afghanistan’s urban population is forecast to almost triple from 9 to 25 million in 30 years.1 The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 2016 that 50m people worldwide were affected by urban armed conflict.2 But the roles of cities in armed conflicts go beyond that of sites for urban warfare. Cities often receive significant numbers of people displaced by conflicts, and local authorities frequently lack the necessary infrastructure and institutions to properly manage sudden and large inflows.3 Cities have also come to play a key role in armed conflict, supporting non-state armed groups in achieving political and economic goals beyond battle field victories. In Iraq, the successful occupation of the country by US-led forces in 2003 was followed by a civil war starting ‘as a primarily urban guerrilla struggle’.4 Mogadishu remains a hotspot in the armed conflict between clan-based militias, al-Shabaab and international forces – seven years after the radical Islamist group was driven out of the Somali capital by African Union troops.5 As the case studies below show, Colombia’s Medellín and Pakistan’s Karachi hosted armed groups and sustained war economies despite not seeing the bulk of combat. Some urban centres in fragile or conflict-affected countries have become sites of ‘conflict expansion’ – convergence points for illicit economies, nonstate armed groups and displaced populations. In other words, cities become tightly integrated into the broader dynamics of an armed conflict by sustaining, magnifying and transforming its dynamics, and sometimes leading to new conflict. The three main conflict-expansion mechanisms – population displacement, illicit economies and non-state group activities – can combine in different ways to transform or prolong a conflict. Rapid urban population growth facilitates this process, for instance, by exacerbating pre-existing sectarian divides, creating political and economic strain and providing opportunities for criminals and rebels to establish territorial presence and erode state control. Cities also provide opportunities for armed groups from outside the urban area to secure finance by working with criminal organisations, raise recruits from marginalised populations or hide from government operations in rural areas. In this way, cities can become hubs for political violence and its perpetrators, supporting non-state armed groups in achieving their political and economic goals beyond battlefield victories.6 Given the presence of rival groups interested in the same opportunities, armed actors may also develop more ruthless tactics, potentially exacerbating the severity of conflict in cities. The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive: cities may both prolong and transform the dynamics of conflict by offering rural-based armed groups access to funds, recruits and control, while simultaneously intensifying urban violence.