User:Char/sandbox2: Difference between revisions

Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
mNo edit summary
 
(27 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
The Maqar Azwi - The Big Misery


{{Infobox civil conflict
==Assaif offensive==
| title = Charnean Revolution<br>The Muttay
{{main|Assaif offensive}}
| subtitle = ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ
The outbreak of violence across Charnea on the 7th of June, 2012, shocked the country and set in motion its future political destabilization. The Assaif offensive, carried out by the militant [[Azdarin|Azdarist]] group [[Amaa]], was the largest single insurgent action carried out in Charnea since the end of the [[Ninvite War]] and involved dozens of bombings and attacks by gunmen on the same day. Breaking with the pattern of most historical insurgent offensives in Charnea, the Assaif Offensive primarily targeted non-strategic civilian targets with only a handful of strikes hitting critical infrastructure or military targets. The attacks represented a change in the strategy of the Amaa and other insurgent organizations in Charnea away from the model of asymmetric military-style operations primarily targetting the [[Charnean Army]] and its supporting infrastructure, exampled by the [[Hatha]] during the Ninvite War, towards a strategy of terrorism targeting civilians, especially foreign tourists and businesspeople, in an effort to weaken Charnea by damaging its international reputation and impacting its economy. Along with the change in doctrine came a change in tactics. In the past, the common tactic of insurgent forces was to attack an outpost or strategic position occupied by Charnean soldiers with groups of two or more heavily armed fighters carrying ammunition and explosives as well as water and rations to last for several days. The aim of such attacks was usually to hold out for as long as possible while engaging the Charnean Army in a protracted and bloody combat action that would favor the insurgents. Against the softer targets presented by financial institutions, Combine headquarters and tourist attractions, armed groups could inflict greater casualties in a short time and would often attack multiple targets with a combination of explosives and automatic weapons before being apprehended or, in most cases, killed by security forces. The group also attempted to seize a broadcasting station in the Charnean capital to transmit a call to arms for other anti-state or anti-Charnean groups to take action, but this was foiled when the station's equipment was destroyed by its operators before it could be seized.  
| side3 =  
| partof =  
| image = {{Multiple image
| border                = infobox
| total_width            = 300
| perrow                = 2/2
| image1 = 110109_Algeria_slashes_food_prices_amid_riots_002.jpg
| image2 = Rauch_Tunesien.jpg
| image3= Echec_du_gouvernement_dunité_nationale_en_Tunisie_%285366807093%29.jpg
| image4= Echec_du_gouvernement_dunité_nationale_en_Tunisie_%285367416918%29.jpg
}}
| caption =
| date = 7 June 2023 – 1 October 2023
| place = [[Charnea]]
| coordinates =
| causes = {{plainlist|
* {{wp|Government corruption}}
* {{wp|Social inequality|Social inequalities}}
* Arrest of [[Murab Kubalt|Cobalt Square]] leaders
* Attempted military purge
}}
| methods = {{plainlist|
* Civil resistance
* {{wp|Demonstration (people)|Demonstrations}}
* Armed resistance
* Military coup
}}
| result = {{plainlist|
* Overthrow of the AKE Party
* Death of Premier [[Marus Ibiza ag Haqar]]
* Purge of the [[Charnean Army|General Staff]]
* Dissolution of the Agraw Imgharan
* Release of political prisoners
* Establishment of the provisional military government
* Election of the [[Agraw Allolan]]
}}
| side1 =
| side2 =
| leadfigures1 =
| leadfigures2 =
| howmany1 =
| howmany2 =
| howmany3 =
| injuries = 3,107
| fatalities = 487
| arrests = {{nowrap|14,200 demonstrators (later released)}}<br>2,129 AKE officials, state security officers, and others taken into custody by the mutineers.
| casualties_label =
| notes =
}}


The '''Muttay''' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ, lit. "The Change"), also known as the '''Charnean Revolution''', was a period of civil unrest, mutiny and political revolution which took place during the summer of 2023, resulting in the overthrow of the Imperial government and the establishment of the [[Charnea|Charnean Republic]]. The focal point of the Muttay was the month of June, which saw weeks of demonstrations, political assassinations and the final mutiny from within the [[Charnean Army]] which proved fatal to the Imperial regime. However, it is generally agreed that the Muttay did not fully come to an end until the dissolution of the provisional military government and the swearing in of the first elected administration of the Republic on October 1st.  
Between 450 and 1240 were killed in the attacks of the Assaif offensive, at least 100 of them foreign nationals. In at least two cases, the attackers took hostages and engaged security forces in a protracted siege, incurring further casualties and media attention. Besides being the bloodiest single terror attack in Charnean history, it was also by far the most publicized internationally. The international and domestic fallout of the attacks created intense political pressure on the Charnean government, as well as broad condemnation not only of the Amaa but also of the Charnean intelligence and security apparatus that had been mostly blind to the extensive preparations for such a large and widely dispersed campaign of attacks. The fallout would later intensify when it came to light several months later than many military intelligence units had in fact raised the alarm over what they suspected to be preparations being made for a large scale attack, reports that were ignored or downplayed by elements of the hierarchy.  


It consisted mainly of demonstrations and protests staged by thousands of active and retired [[Charnean Army]] personnel and their families, which escalated into violent clashes between state security forces and armed elements within the protest movement. These clashes culminated in a widespread mutiny within the Army which resulted in the defeat of state security forces, the capture of government buildings and the success of a military coup staged by the mutineers. Unrest within the Charnean Army had been rising for years with complaints of low pay, corruption of superior officers, and systemic discrimination against the [[Tenerians#Kel_Ajama|Kel Ajama]] ethnic sub-group which had become a majority of the Army's manpower. The proximate cause of the protests in March of 2023 were the arrests of Army Colonels [[Amastan Elmoctar]], [[Hrakhel Kabte]] and the killing of Colonel [[Chekkadh Amanrassa]] who had resisted arrest. All of these officers, as well as many others subject to arrest, were members of the [[Murab Kubalt|Cobalt Square]], a faction within the military opposing the perceived corruption of the Army's leadership as well as a litany of injustices and accusations the group leveled at the Imperial government. The majority were also ethnic Ajamites and influential figures in the Charnean veteran communities well known as advocates for increased compensation and benefits for Ajamite veterans.  
Since most of the those directly involved in the attacks had already been killed in the process of carrying them out, the Charnean military response was targeted against possible training grounds or command nodes of the Amaa network believed to be embedded in communities and secret locations across eastern Charnea. Although state sources would make a number of claims as to the destruction of alleged terrorist compounds during this Charnean counteroffensive, as it would come to be called, these claims were broadly dismissed by both the international media and much of the Charnean public. Charnean military operations against the Amaa in the summer and early autumn of 2012 suffered greatly from a lack of preparation and intelligence gathering, leading to Army units being ordered to blindly search wide areas suspected of hosting Amaa bases leading to a series of costly ambushes on Charnean troops as well as a high non-combatant casualty rate. A number of figures in the military would later say that their units had been rushed to the east to produce what could be passed off as enemy casualties because of the political need for the regime to save face following the disastrous attacks.


State security agencies alleged that the demonstrations were being coordinated by Colonel [[Khyar Aziouel]], the fourth leader of the Cobalt Square who evaded capture by military police who attempted to arrest him in an Army encampment outside of [[Azut]] in Adjer province. In reality, much of the mobilization of the marchers was spontaneous in nature and motivated primarily by the arrests and crackdowns as well as years of ignored demands from the Army veterans. The later mutiny and coup, however, was linked to the Cobalt Square and its wide reaching influence. A force of several thousand mutineers armed with Army issue equipment descended on the capital in the morning of the 3rd of April following an escalation of violence between police and protestors in the preceding days, while tens of thousands of active duty ICA soldiers deserted their posts, seized bases and arrested officers and political chiefs on their own initiative all across Charnea. These soldiers, labeled mutineers by the Army high command, were for the most part not directly connected to the Cobalt Square but belonged to like minded groups across several of the Army services. Many were motivated by self-preservation, believing that the ongoing purge of the Cobalt Square would inevitably expand to a general cleansing of the armed forces of various officers and groups considered to be dissidents or malcontents.  
==ag Haqar legitimacy crisis==
The incumbent Premier of Charnea during the Assaif offensive and its aftermath was [[Marus Ibiza ag Haqar]], a lifelong [[Congress of Progress and Prosperity|AKE]] party member and [[Madounism|Madounist]] who had emerged victorious in the power struggle to succeed long-time dictator of Charnea [[Pazir Madoun]] as paramount leader of the AKE following his death in 2002. Premier ag Haqar had spent a great deal of his decade in power up to that point establishing as much direct control over military and civilian institutions as he could and was well known to be intimately involved in military and security operations. Because of this, he became an easy target for anger of the Charnean populace and the international community for his mismanagement of the Assaif offensive, both in the intelligence failure to foresee and prevent the attacks as well as in botching the military response. This pressure manifested in the form of mass demonstrations in Agnannet and, more pressingly for the Premier, political attacks by Charnea's minority opposition parties.  


The fall of the Imperial government of Charnea on the morning of April 4th was met with declarations of victory by the demonstrators and an official announcement by the Cobalt Square broadcast through state media. The Cobalt Square announced the formal abolition of the Empire of Charnea, the dissolution of the Agraw Imgharan state assembly and the establishment of a Republic under the stewardship of the Charnean Army. An interim ruling council was convened on the 4th and 5th, representing the Square and many of the other groups that had turned out for the demonstrations was established pending a general election to be held within the ranks of the Army on May 14th once proper electoral infrastructure could be put in place. Having successfully accomplished its stated goals of purging the corrupt elements of the Imperial government and establishing a military democracy, the Cobalt Square officially disbanded on April 17th. The Republic of Charnea, formally declared on the April 4th, would take shape more concretely following the May elections which established the new [[Agraw Allolan]] popular assembly and voted Khyar Aziouel the first chief of state of the new Republic. In this first month following the revolution, many would be freed from custody including all imprisoned members of the Cobalt Square, the thousands of protestors which had been arrested over the course of the demonstrations, and further scores of dissidents and political prisoners interned in the Charnean prison system many of whom were unrelated who the military uprising and the Cobalt Square movement. Many records and classified documents of the previous regime were made public by the Aziouel government as part of a concerted effort to garner support and legitimacy for the new regime by revealing the crimes of the old, including many disappearances and extrajudicial killings of protestors involved in the Muttay at the hands of state security forces.  
Marus Ibiza, a scion of the Charnean civilian intelligence apparatus with many connections to the [[SET]] state security agency, attempted to shift the blame to the military for the failures of the Assaif counteroffensive, which only served to anger much of the military hierarchy.


==Background==
Demonstrations turn to riots, opposition arms itself...
===Discontent in the Army===
==Emergency Government==
The unrest within the Charnean Army which ultimately boiled over in the Muttay had been brewing under the surface for decades. Since the movement towards and urban and industrialized modern society and economy in the early 20th century, a divide had been created within the [[Tenerians|Tenerian]] majority of Charnea between those who moved to the growing cities and those who remained in the desert and preserved elements of their ancestral way of life. The former, known as the Kel Aɣrem or derisively as "Townies" by the rural Charneans, benefitted disproportionately from the fruits of modernization and the rising standards of living in Charnea which resulted from its aggressively Developmentalist economic development. Kel Aɣrem staffed the major state corporations and private conglomerates operating out of the great cities of Charnea, and through these positions gained influence over the ministries and offices of the Charnean government and the dominant AKE party. For the most part, Aɣremite inhabitants of the major cities like Agnannet could access necessary resources to deal with everyday problems and have their complaints addressed through the system of patronage and clan connections with high ranking Aɣremite officials and businessmen who could utilize their connections to redress any major grievances.  
On September 3rd, 2013, a coup was launched by Major General [[Othman Dey]] against the ag Haqar regime. Othman Dey, the son of renowned Ninvite War-era General [[Imran Dey]], was well respected and had the support of key figures in the officer corps as well as civilian support from important Charnean Combines. With broad military support, the coup itself was swift and bloodless, with the Carnelian Honor Guard surrendering Premier ag Haqar to military custody by the end of the 3rd. Dey then moved to occupy the legislative complex, dissolving the assembly without much incident and subsequently declaring an Emergency Government with himself as acting Premier and a military council under his leadership acting as his cabinet. The coup had been carried out in the hopes that removing ag Haqar would quell the growing dissention and prevent the outbreak of widespread disorder and civil violence. Instead, the seizure of military power and the immediate crackdowns instead backfired as the riots continued in Agnannet and other cities, this time exploding into bloody confrontations as demonstrators faced soldiers with live rounds instead of municipal riot police. The Tahusket Square Massacre on 8 September 2013 was the largest such clash, provoking a major international backlash immediately on the heels of the coup. The bloodshed of the massacre and similar incidents in the first week of of the Emergency Government provoked armed retaliation by what were at first small groups of armed citizens, but would quickly develop into a network of urban militias coordinated by an organization calling itself the Charnean Revolutionary Government in Achra or CRGA.  


[[File:CrapICA.png|200px|thumb|left|Ajamite soldiers in Charnean wars of the 20th century often made do with outdated or substandard equipment]]
Various resistance groups carried out attacks across Charnea, but these were relatively isolated and small in size. The largest of the these was the armed wing of the Ekelhoc protest movement, which was boxed in and destroyed in its base area of the Tafaset slum in the Ekelhoc outskirts within one week of the outbreak of armed resistance. By the time the CRGA had coalesced, virtually all resistance groups aligned with the now-disbanded Charnean opposition movement outside of Achra had been contained and was destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Inside [[Achra]] however, resistance groups had managed to seize many neighborhoods in the south of the Greater Agnannet agglomeration as well as in the city of [[Atafala]] to the south. Much of the Iza delta was now dangerous to government troops as ambushes by resistance fighters became common. The CRGA attracted the interest of a number of [[Kiso Pact|Kiso-aligned]] nations as a potential revolutionary democratic alternative to the repressive Charnean regime reviled by most left-leaning states. However, the CRGA's position holding ground deep in Charnean territory and inside the dense air defenses of its capital region made it unfeasible to supply material aid to the group without taking measures that would amount to an invasion of Charnea. Open war with Charnea being a non-starter for the neighboring [[Rubric Coast Consortium|Rubric Coast states]], support for the CRGA was limited to international pressure on the Charnean Emergency Government in the form of condemnations and the threat of diplomatic sanctions. Many Charnean businesses operating internationally also began to be affected by boycott movements as the military campaign in Achra unfolded.  
However, the Kel Ajama who remained in the desert lacked these connections. Largely excluded from the modernization and the growth of the major businesses, the Ajamites not only received very little benefits or standard of living increases during this era but also generally suffered from conditions of unemployment, lack of education and lack of access to healthcare and other public services due to their semi-nomadic lifestyle. The only Kel Ajama which evaded these barriers were a small minority who were connected to the old noble clans and were able to leverage this status to gain standing within the government and establish their own power bases in the great cities. This resulted in a division within the Tenerians, with the Ajamites and their urban cousins diverging into two distinct subcultures of the Tenerian ethnicity. Poor Ajamites with little education and employment opportunities became the backbone of the Army ground forces, especially in the aftermath of the [[Agala War]]. In particular, they were considered desirable recruits as they were hardier than the urban Charneans, receiving and accepting smaller food rations, being pre-adapted to navigating the desert and surviving in its hostile conditions, and accepting lower daily wages due to the lack of any viable alternatives. Many minority groups such as the Deshrians would be recruited for similar reasons, but the Ajamites would be preferred as they shared a language and cultural ties with the dominant groups in the Imperial state. The predominance of the Ajamites in the Army would rise to new levels with the mass mobilization which occurred during the [[Ninvite War]] in which virtually all able bodied male Ajamites were inducted into the Army to wage war upon [[Fahran]] and their {{wp|Arabs|Gharib}} separatist allies in the Charnean far east.  


The Ninvite War of the mid 1980s exacerbated earlier conditions within the military. The upper echelons of the command structure were mainly politically connected members of the great clans, either promoted on the basis of loyalty or introduced altogether at the top of the military hierarchy because of outside influence. These officers divided up the body of the ICA into personalist organizations for political reasons, creating many parallel commands and inefficient structures both as a means of furthering the status of specific clans as well as protecting the power concentrated in the autocratic Premier of Charnea. This seriously antagonized the mostly Ajamite junior officers of the Army, who made up the backbone of the combat arms of the ICA and were widely credited as being the most capable component of the organization upon which the decentralized, initiative-based Charnean school of desert warfare depends. These junior officers were frequently passed over for promotion to higher posts in favor of often less competent but loyal and politically connected Aɣremite officers. This anger was also compounded by the continuing conditions of poverty of many of the Ajamite communities in Charnea.  
===Achra insurgency===
===Regime of the Martial===
The insurgency of the CRGA militia groups quickly developed into the protracted siege of resistance strongholds in Achra by the Charnean military. Army units, already in a state of high alert from the 3 September Coup, deployed quickly in response to reports of resistance actions across the region. The initially softened posture of the military, involving checkpoints and the limited travel of civilians across their lines, rapidly hardened in response to insurgent attacks and led to region-wide lockdowns and the increasing use of armored vehicles as Army units prepared for hard fighting inside the capital and the surrounding region. The Army moved to cut off lines of communication and divide areas of resistance activity into manageable pockets, most importantly separating resistance-held neighborhoods in Agnannet and Atafala from each other and from the semi-clandestine resistance network in the Iza delta. Charnean troops, experienced in counterinsurgency operations, were aiming to halt the enemy's ability to move freely and box them into restrictive areas of operation where they could be attacked and destroyed. However, the application of this well tested tactic in the highly urbanized environment of the capital region led to hundreds of thousands of non-combatants being trapped for weeks in their homes as the Army laid siege to their neighborhoods.  
In 2013, the [[Seven Day Coup]] resulted in the ouster and death in custody of many government officials by a political-military cabal opposing economic reforms being pushed by the regime at the time. This disruption ended in a counter-coup headed by Martuf Lamine, Martial of Charnea and a veteran of the Ninvite War, which would depose the putschists. The Martial would go about establishing a de facto {{wp|military dictatorship}} under his control with the aim of pushing through his own agenda and plans to repair the country's political ills and economic stagnation. To further his goals, Martuf Lamine would install [[Amina N'Akall|Amina N'Okha]] (today N'Akall) as a puppet monarch and govern as Regent of the Empire. It was during this period that the Cobalt Square was founded by four Ajamite Colonels of the ICA who were ardent supporters of Martuf and the ideology he espoused but were even more radical in their aims for Charnea than he was. Martial Lamine did not create the Square or take leadership of the group, but would find political use for the organization as a tool for forcing the compliance of uncooperative elements of the state who hated and feared the Ajamite movement and the radical Cobalt Square in particular. He would continue to maintain the loyalty of the four Colonels and their followers to his regime by passing some measures to improve the conditions of the Ajamites in the Army, although these reforms would not be considered adequate and many would find them lacking. The decade of 2013-2023 was a time of rising political tension, during which Martuf's puppet Queen Amina as well as the Martial himself came under threat of assassination multiple times. Armed standoffs between different factions within the Charnean Army began to occur with increasing frequency, alarming the Charnean government and creating an atmosphere of distrust from the regime and the high command towards the Ajamite soldiers that made up most of the military. Because of this distrust, many attempts by Martial Lamine to meet the demands of Ajamite factions in the Army would be blocked on the grounds that they would make the Ajamites too powerful, while at the same time the new restrictions placed on Ajamite members of the Army would only further antagonize them. The Cobalt Square, once a minor clique made of up just 28 junior officers and enlisted leaders, grew in size to a burgeoning 3,300 members with wide reaching influence across the counterinsurgency corps and the border guards of the ICA, making them by far the most influential among the dissident groups in the Army. This also made them the prime targets of a military purge which would unfold in the aftermath of Martuf Lamine's death in Fahran in December of 2022.
===Purge of the Cobalt Square===


==Protests==
The battle against the CRGA would take months as the Army cleared the neighborhoods it had locked down in grueling door-to-door operations. Clearing of the resistance began in the south Agnannet slums, which were considered the first priority, before units moved south to root out fighters in the Iza delta and lay siege to resistance-controlled Atafala. Thanks to the proliferation of small-arms in private ownership in Charnea, resistance fighters had no shortage of firearms but suffered from a lack of automatic weapons, heavy equipment like machine-guns and anti-armor weapons, as well as explosives that could be used in {{wp|Improvised explosive device|IEDs}} aimed at destroying Army troop transports. The ad hoc nature of the CRGA's organization facilitated the flexibility of command for local militias affiliated with the CRGA but hampered what little inter-unit coordination was still possible through the military's blockade. Additionally, most militia units lacked any capacity to provide medical care for wounded fighters, leading to wounded resistance fighters often being left to be captured by the enemy knowing their chances of survival were better even as prisoners of government troops. Because of their material advantages, government troops lost one soldier {{wp|Killed in action|KIA}} for 14 armed resistance fighters dead.
==Mutiny==
 
==Effects==
Othman Dey commended the officers on the ground for what he considered to be a laudable effort to reduce collateral damage and civilian deaths. Independent assessments concluded that for every five armed resistance fighters KIA (distinct from suspected resistance fighters who were unarmed), 1.4 civilians would be killed or severely wounded. While this was condemned by the international community, the Emergency Government internally considered these figures to represent a major success, as they were considerably lower than the ratio of collateral casualties of a typical Charnean counterinsurgency style operation. The reduction of casualties in the Achra campaign was largely attributed to the ban on air strikes and heavy weapons, a measure that in many cases slowed the Army's progress as it cleared obstacles and entrenched positions, but which undoubtably reduced non-combatant deaths and physical damage to buildings and infrastructure.
===Political impact===
 
===Economic crisis===
After December of 2013, the conflict decreased in intensity significantly as the last major CRGA militias were dispersed, suffering casualties and losing much of their equipment in the destruction of their bases of operation by the military. However, small scale attacks would continue in southwestern Achra for years to come, mainly targeting military personnel. The most recent attack was in 2020, in which a member of the CRGA underground resistance attacked a troop transport with an improvised grenade-launcher in northern Atafala killing 6 and wounding 21, all soldiers.
===Exodus===
 
==2015 financial crisis==
Since the Assaif offensive in 2012, the Charnean economy had endured blow after blow. Severe contractions in the tourism and manufacturing sectors, the bread and butter of the Charnean economy, saw the sudden unemployment of more than 100,000 Charneans due to business closures and layoffs. The corresponding collapse of revenues from taxes and trade tariffs, together with the cost of military operations and infrastructural damage in the years since Assaif weighed heavily on the government's coffers. The Emergency Government had de-valued the Azref, the international component of [[OAD|Charnea's dual-currency system]], and took on loans to sustain itself for months, but soon found itself facing a harsh financial reality by mid-2015. Othman Dey and the government's authorities faced collapsed revenues, a heavy load of debt with high interest payments, and little in the way of international goodwill. Austerity measures had already gutted a significant portion of the state's non-security bureaucracy in an effort to help pay for the Achra campaign. Another measure to gain respite, a pause in interest payments, was put into place but failed to be renewed in March of 2015 after negotiations broke down.
 
In order to alleviate the financial pressure and help fund his planned reconstruction projects aimed at reviving some sectors of the economy, Othman Dey proposed a cancelation of outstanding debts. Under his proposal, the elimination of the debt and more importantly the crushing interest payments would enable what revenues the government could collect to be used for the reconstruction of the economy.
 
The Mutulese take issue...
==Laminid Regency==
 
==The Muttay==
{{main|Muttay}}
Royals Rebel, Martuf forms the Republic

Latest revision as of 18:02, 16 June 2024

The Maqar Azwi - The Big Misery

Assaif offensive

The outbreak of violence across Charnea on the 7th of June, 2012, shocked the country and set in motion its future political destabilization. The Assaif offensive, carried out by the militant Azdarist group Amaa, was the largest single insurgent action carried out in Charnea since the end of the Ninvite War and involved dozens of bombings and attacks by gunmen on the same day. Breaking with the pattern of most historical insurgent offensives in Charnea, the Assaif Offensive primarily targeted non-strategic civilian targets with only a handful of strikes hitting critical infrastructure or military targets. The attacks represented a change in the strategy of the Amaa and other insurgent organizations in Charnea away from the model of asymmetric military-style operations primarily targetting the Charnean Army and its supporting infrastructure, exampled by the Hatha during the Ninvite War, towards a strategy of terrorism targeting civilians, especially foreign tourists and businesspeople, in an effort to weaken Charnea by damaging its international reputation and impacting its economy. Along with the change in doctrine came a change in tactics. In the past, the common tactic of insurgent forces was to attack an outpost or strategic position occupied by Charnean soldiers with groups of two or more heavily armed fighters carrying ammunition and explosives as well as water and rations to last for several days. The aim of such attacks was usually to hold out for as long as possible while engaging the Charnean Army in a protracted and bloody combat action that would favor the insurgents. Against the softer targets presented by financial institutions, Combine headquarters and tourist attractions, armed groups could inflict greater casualties in a short time and would often attack multiple targets with a combination of explosives and automatic weapons before being apprehended or, in most cases, killed by security forces. The group also attempted to seize a broadcasting station in the Charnean capital to transmit a call to arms for other anti-state or anti-Charnean groups to take action, but this was foiled when the station's equipment was destroyed by its operators before it could be seized.

Between 450 and 1240 were killed in the attacks of the Assaif offensive, at least 100 of them foreign nationals. In at least two cases, the attackers took hostages and engaged security forces in a protracted siege, incurring further casualties and media attention. Besides being the bloodiest single terror attack in Charnean history, it was also by far the most publicized internationally. The international and domestic fallout of the attacks created intense political pressure on the Charnean government, as well as broad condemnation not only of the Amaa but also of the Charnean intelligence and security apparatus that had been mostly blind to the extensive preparations for such a large and widely dispersed campaign of attacks. The fallout would later intensify when it came to light several months later than many military intelligence units had in fact raised the alarm over what they suspected to be preparations being made for a large scale attack, reports that were ignored or downplayed by elements of the hierarchy.

Since most of the those directly involved in the attacks had already been killed in the process of carrying them out, the Charnean military response was targeted against possible training grounds or command nodes of the Amaa network believed to be embedded in communities and secret locations across eastern Charnea. Although state sources would make a number of claims as to the destruction of alleged terrorist compounds during this Charnean counteroffensive, as it would come to be called, these claims were broadly dismissed by both the international media and much of the Charnean public. Charnean military operations against the Amaa in the summer and early autumn of 2012 suffered greatly from a lack of preparation and intelligence gathering, leading to Army units being ordered to blindly search wide areas suspected of hosting Amaa bases leading to a series of costly ambushes on Charnean troops as well as a high non-combatant casualty rate. A number of figures in the military would later say that their units had been rushed to the east to produce what could be passed off as enemy casualties because of the political need for the regime to save face following the disastrous attacks.

ag Haqar legitimacy crisis

The incumbent Premier of Charnea during the Assaif offensive and its aftermath was Marus Ibiza ag Haqar, a lifelong AKE party member and Madounist who had emerged victorious in the power struggle to succeed long-time dictator of Charnea Pazir Madoun as paramount leader of the AKE following his death in 2002. Premier ag Haqar had spent a great deal of his decade in power up to that point establishing as much direct control over military and civilian institutions as he could and was well known to be intimately involved in military and security operations. Because of this, he became an easy target for anger of the Charnean populace and the international community for his mismanagement of the Assaif offensive, both in the intelligence failure to foresee and prevent the attacks as well as in botching the military response. This pressure manifested in the form of mass demonstrations in Agnannet and, more pressingly for the Premier, political attacks by Charnea's minority opposition parties.

Marus Ibiza, a scion of the Charnean civilian intelligence apparatus with many connections to the SET state security agency, attempted to shift the blame to the military for the failures of the Assaif counteroffensive, which only served to anger much of the military hierarchy.

Demonstrations turn to riots, opposition arms itself...

Emergency Government

On September 3rd, 2013, a coup was launched by Major General Othman Dey against the ag Haqar regime. Othman Dey, the son of renowned Ninvite War-era General Imran Dey, was well respected and had the support of key figures in the officer corps as well as civilian support from important Charnean Combines. With broad military support, the coup itself was swift and bloodless, with the Carnelian Honor Guard surrendering Premier ag Haqar to military custody by the end of the 3rd. Dey then moved to occupy the legislative complex, dissolving the assembly without much incident and subsequently declaring an Emergency Government with himself as acting Premier and a military council under his leadership acting as his cabinet. The coup had been carried out in the hopes that removing ag Haqar would quell the growing dissention and prevent the outbreak of widespread disorder and civil violence. Instead, the seizure of military power and the immediate crackdowns instead backfired as the riots continued in Agnannet and other cities, this time exploding into bloody confrontations as demonstrators faced soldiers with live rounds instead of municipal riot police. The Tahusket Square Massacre on 8 September 2013 was the largest such clash, provoking a major international backlash immediately on the heels of the coup. The bloodshed of the massacre and similar incidents in the first week of of the Emergency Government provoked armed retaliation by what were at first small groups of armed citizens, but would quickly develop into a network of urban militias coordinated by an organization calling itself the Charnean Revolutionary Government in Achra or CRGA.

Various resistance groups carried out attacks across Charnea, but these were relatively isolated and small in size. The largest of the these was the armed wing of the Ekelhoc protest movement, which was boxed in and destroyed in its base area of the Tafaset slum in the Ekelhoc outskirts within one week of the outbreak of armed resistance. By the time the CRGA had coalesced, virtually all resistance groups aligned with the now-disbanded Charnean opposition movement outside of Achra had been contained and was destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Inside Achra however, resistance groups had managed to seize many neighborhoods in the south of the Greater Agnannet agglomeration as well as in the city of Atafala to the south. Much of the Iza delta was now dangerous to government troops as ambushes by resistance fighters became common. The CRGA attracted the interest of a number of Kiso-aligned nations as a potential revolutionary democratic alternative to the repressive Charnean regime reviled by most left-leaning states. However, the CRGA's position holding ground deep in Charnean territory and inside the dense air defenses of its capital region made it unfeasible to supply material aid to the group without taking measures that would amount to an invasion of Charnea. Open war with Charnea being a non-starter for the neighboring Rubric Coast states, support for the CRGA was limited to international pressure on the Charnean Emergency Government in the form of condemnations and the threat of diplomatic sanctions. Many Charnean businesses operating internationally also began to be affected by boycott movements as the military campaign in Achra unfolded.

Achra insurgency

The insurgency of the CRGA militia groups quickly developed into the protracted siege of resistance strongholds in Achra by the Charnean military. Army units, already in a state of high alert from the 3 September Coup, deployed quickly in response to reports of resistance actions across the region. The initially softened posture of the military, involving checkpoints and the limited travel of civilians across their lines, rapidly hardened in response to insurgent attacks and led to region-wide lockdowns and the increasing use of armored vehicles as Army units prepared for hard fighting inside the capital and the surrounding region. The Army moved to cut off lines of communication and divide areas of resistance activity into manageable pockets, most importantly separating resistance-held neighborhoods in Agnannet and Atafala from each other and from the semi-clandestine resistance network in the Iza delta. Charnean troops, experienced in counterinsurgency operations, were aiming to halt the enemy's ability to move freely and box them into restrictive areas of operation where they could be attacked and destroyed. However, the application of this well tested tactic in the highly urbanized environment of the capital region led to hundreds of thousands of non-combatants being trapped for weeks in their homes as the Army laid siege to their neighborhoods.

The battle against the CRGA would take months as the Army cleared the neighborhoods it had locked down in grueling door-to-door operations. Clearing of the resistance began in the south Agnannet slums, which were considered the first priority, before units moved south to root out fighters in the Iza delta and lay siege to resistance-controlled Atafala. Thanks to the proliferation of small-arms in private ownership in Charnea, resistance fighters had no shortage of firearms but suffered from a lack of automatic weapons, heavy equipment like machine-guns and anti-armor weapons, as well as explosives that could be used in IEDs aimed at destroying Army troop transports. The ad hoc nature of the CRGA's organization facilitated the flexibility of command for local militias affiliated with the CRGA but hampered what little inter-unit coordination was still possible through the military's blockade. Additionally, most militia units lacked any capacity to provide medical care for wounded fighters, leading to wounded resistance fighters often being left to be captured by the enemy knowing their chances of survival were better even as prisoners of government troops. Because of their material advantages, government troops lost one soldier KIA for 14 armed resistance fighters dead.

Othman Dey commended the officers on the ground for what he considered to be a laudable effort to reduce collateral damage and civilian deaths. Independent assessments concluded that for every five armed resistance fighters KIA (distinct from suspected resistance fighters who were unarmed), 1.4 civilians would be killed or severely wounded. While this was condemned by the international community, the Emergency Government internally considered these figures to represent a major success, as they were considerably lower than the ratio of collateral casualties of a typical Charnean counterinsurgency style operation. The reduction of casualties in the Achra campaign was largely attributed to the ban on air strikes and heavy weapons, a measure that in many cases slowed the Army's progress as it cleared obstacles and entrenched positions, but which undoubtably reduced non-combatant deaths and physical damage to buildings and infrastructure.

After December of 2013, the conflict decreased in intensity significantly as the last major CRGA militias were dispersed, suffering casualties and losing much of their equipment in the destruction of their bases of operation by the military. However, small scale attacks would continue in southwestern Achra for years to come, mainly targeting military personnel. The most recent attack was in 2020, in which a member of the CRGA underground resistance attacked a troop transport with an improvised grenade-launcher in northern Atafala killing 6 and wounding 21, all soldiers.

2015 financial crisis

Since the Assaif offensive in 2012, the Charnean economy had endured blow after blow. Severe contractions in the tourism and manufacturing sectors, the bread and butter of the Charnean economy, saw the sudden unemployment of more than 100,000 Charneans due to business closures and layoffs. The corresponding collapse of revenues from taxes and trade tariffs, together with the cost of military operations and infrastructural damage in the years since Assaif weighed heavily on the government's coffers. The Emergency Government had de-valued the Azref, the international component of Charnea's dual-currency system, and took on loans to sustain itself for months, but soon found itself facing a harsh financial reality by mid-2015. Othman Dey and the government's authorities faced collapsed revenues, a heavy load of debt with high interest payments, and little in the way of international goodwill. Austerity measures had already gutted a significant portion of the state's non-security bureaucracy in an effort to help pay for the Achra campaign. Another measure to gain respite, a pause in interest payments, was put into place but failed to be renewed in March of 2015 after negotiations broke down.

In order to alleviate the financial pressure and help fund his planned reconstruction projects aimed at reviving some sectors of the economy, Othman Dey proposed a cancelation of outstanding debts. Under his proposal, the elimination of the debt and more importantly the crushing interest payments would enable what revenues the government could collect to be used for the reconstruction of the economy.

The Mutulese take issue...

Laminid Regency

The Muttay

Royals Rebel, Martuf forms the Republic