Between 2017 and 2021, our Middle East team researched the nature and role of hybrid coercive organisations in the violent conflicts of Syria and Iraq amid geopolitical strife between Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This mattered because such groups proliferated rapidly and because they are poorly understood. Our in-depth work on Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, the Syrian Kurdish YPG and pro-Assad forces, like the Eagles…