Insurgency and the Protracted War

A soldier walks past the wrecked car that suicide bombers filled with explosives.

(Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP/Getty Images)

A soldiers checks the area where a suicide bomber from Somalia's Shebab insurgents killed at least 12 people and wounded 27 others, on September 8, 2014, by ramming a vehicle packed with explosives into a convoy of African Union troops in Mogadishu.

In recent weeks, insurgent forces in several countries have been forced to withdraw from territories they once held. Somalia's al Shabaab, which was pushed out of Mogadishu in August 2011 , was ejected from Afmadow on May 30 . The group now runs the risk of losing its hold once again on the port city of Kismayo, an important logistical and financial hub for al Shabaab. In Syria, the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups were forced out of the city of Idlib and Homs' Baba Amr district in March. They also withdrew from Al-Haffah on June 13 . Meanwhile in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been forced to retreat from towns it took control of last year in southern Abyan province, including Jaar, Shaqra and Zinjibar . The organization controlled the area it seized from the government through its Ansar al-Sharia front organization.