How many state-based conflict deaths in Syria will be reported by ACLED for the month of September 2025?
Here’s what Phillip Godzin’s pgodzinai predicts today:
Less than 100: 5%
Between 100 and 250: 40%
Between 250 and 500: 30%
Between 500 and 1000: 18%
Greater than 1000: 7%
14–18 minutes read. This is a condensed version of pgodzinai’s results. Full rationale here —>)
Perplexity response:
## Available Citations and Analysis
Based on the search results provided, here are the most relevant sources:
** Syrian Arab Republic Humanitarian Data – HDX Platform**
– **Source**: Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)
– **Date**: Current (accessed September 2025)
– **Summary**: Contains 360 humanitarian datasets for Syria from 59 organizations including ACLED conflict events data. The platform shows various categories including conflict events, but specific casualty numbers or recent statistics are not provided in the search results excerpt.
## Key Information Gaps
The search results do not contain specific ACLED data for Syrian state-based conflict deaths in September 2025 or recent historical data that would enable accurate assessment. Critical missing information includes:
– **Current September 2025 Syrian casualty data** from ACLED
– **Recent monthly averages** for Syrian state-based conflict deaths
– **Seasonal patterns** in Syrian conflict intensity
– **Recent developments** in Syrian military operations or ceasefire status
– **Comparative data** from previous September periods
Grok response:
**Title**: Map of Syrian Civil War – Syria news and incidents today
**Description**: A live map and news aggregator tracking ongoing conflicts in Syria, including state-based violence.
**Date of Publication**: September 3, 2025
**Three-Sentence Summary**: This source provides real-time updates on incidents in Syria, including recent clashes in western regions, with data showing continued state-based violence involving government and insurgent forces. It highlights over 500 deaths in July 2025 from conflicts in Suwayda, indicating a potential escalation into September. Expert analyses on the site suggest that sectarian tensions could lead to higher casualty figures if not addressed, based on patterns from early 2025.
**Title**: Syrian civil war
**Description**: Comprehensive Wikipedia overview of the ongoing Syrian conflict, including recent developments.
**Date of Publication**: September 2, 2025 (last updated)
**Three-Sentence Summary**: This page covers the civil war’s evolution, noting the regime’s fall in December 2024 and subsequent violence, with June 2025 seeing 116 documented deaths. It highlights a 25% rise in global political violence per ACLED’s 2024 index, affecting Syria with frequent state-based clashes. Recent updates indicate that southern and western regions remain hotspots, potentially driving higher death counts in September.
**Title**: Southern Syria clashes (July 2025–present)
**Description**: Wikipedia page on recent fighting in southern Syria involving state and non-state actors.
**Date of Publication**: August 27, 2025 (last updated)
**Three-Sentence Summary**: The article reports clashes starting in July 2025 in Suwayda, resulting in at least 504 deaths between July 15-22 alone, as per ACLED-linked updates. It notes extrajudicial killings and government deployments, indicating a rise in state-based violence. Analysts predict this could extend into September, with potential for hundreds more deaths if ceasefires fail.
**Title**: U.S. Kills Islamic State Operative in Rare Raid in Syria
**Description**: New York Times article on a U.S. military operation and its implications for Syrian conflicts.
**Date of Publication**: August 21, 2025
**Three-Sentence Summary**: The article discusses a U.S. raid that eliminated an IS operative, potentially reducing state-based threats in Syria. It references broader ACLED data showing over 194,000 global incidents in 2024, with Syria’s share including recent fatalities. Experts quoted suggest such operations might temporarily lower death tolls but warn of retaliatory violence in September.
Gemini Multiple Choice response:
The most critical data points provided by the research assistant indicate a significant escalation in state-based conflict deaths in Syria in recent months. Specifically, ACLED reports documented 116 deaths in June 2025. Crucially, July 2025 saw a sharp increase, with “at least 504 deaths in Suwayda alone” between July 15-22, suggesting the total for July could have been considerably higher. This July figure is a strong anchor point, establishing a recent baseline of elevated conflict intensity. Earlier in 2025, March saw nearly 400 deaths in western Syria, further reinforcing that conflict levels have been substantial. The period between March and June 2025 reportedly saw 604 deaths, also indicating sustained violence. This evidence strongly pushes the expected death toll for September beyond the “Less than 100” and likely even the “Between 100 and 250” categories.
The general context of “ongoing instability” and “continued skirmishes” post-Assad regime fall (December 2024) suggests that the higher levels of violence observed in March and July are not isolated incidents but rather reflective of a new, more volatile, and elevated baseline for conflict in Syria. While there’s always a possibility of seasonal dips in early fall compared to peak summer months, the research indicates that the “higher violence in summer months [is] potentially carrying into September.” This suggests that a significant de-escalation below recent levels is unlikely without a major political or military shift.
Considering the Brier score, I must carefully calibrate probabilities. Placing high confidence in a very low number of deaths would be miscalibrated given the July 2025 data. Conversely, a dramatic escalation beyond 1000 deaths, while possible in a highly fluid conflict zone, would require evidence of a new, large-scale offensive or significant change in conflict dynamics not currently reported. Therefore, the range that encompasses and extends slightly beyond the confirmed July 2025 figures seems most probable.
Anthropic response:
The most relevant recent data shows substantial volatility in Syrian conflict deaths throughout 2025. June 2025 recorded 116 deaths according to ACLED, representing a relatively moderate month. However, July 2025 saw a dramatic escalation with at least 504 deaths in Suwayda alone between July 15-22, indicating the potential for rapid changes in violence levels. The March 2025 western Syria clashes also resulted in approximately 400 deaths, demonstrating that monthly totals can vary significantly based on specific regional conflicts.
Several factors point toward continued instability that could affect September’s death toll. The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 has created ongoing power vacuums and sectarian tensions, particularly in western and southern regions. The failure of ceasefire attempts in July 2025 and continued presence of various armed groups including remnant loyalist forces, militias, and international actors suggest the underlying conditions for violence remain. The historical pattern shows summer months tend to have higher violence levels, though this typically moderates slightly in early fall.
Given we’re already 4 days into September with 26 days remaining, any major escalation would likely already be showing indicators in early reporting, though the research doesn’t provide specific early September incidents. The range of recent monthly totals (116 in June to 500+ in July for just one region) suggests high variability is possible.
GPT Multiple Choice JSON response:
My available, recent evidence suggests a baseline monthly level above 100 deaths (June ~116 per ACLED reporting cited in the research notes) with at least one large spike in mid‑July (reports of ~504 deaths in Suwayda in a short period). That pattern implies a nontrivial chance of a moderate month (250–500) and a meaningful chance of a higher month (500–1000) if episodic violence continues or if multiple escalations occur in different governorates. A month below 100 seems unlikely given June’s ~116 and July’s spike, while a month above 1000 would require either a large offensive, a major massacre or systematic counting changes — possible but lower probability.
I also place weight on the calendar/time factor: we are only four days into September (Sep 4, 2025), so early-week incident reports matter less than the full month’s trajectory; however ACLED’s final reported monthly total (the resolution target) will reflect all incidents and subsequent updates by the Oct 31 resolution date. Because the resolution allows ACLED time to incorporate late reports, I judge reporting lag risk as modest but non‑negligible.
Quantitative intuition and expectation
– Base signals: recent months show variability: a modest month (≈100–250) has occurred (June ~116), and large short bursts have produced >500 deaths in a week (mid‑July Suwayda). That combination makes the distribution centered in the 100–1000 range, with mass concentrated in the 100–500 bins and substantial tail into 500–1000.
– Expected (approx.) count using midpoints and my probabilities below is ~470 deaths for September 2025 (see assumption section for how this shifts if assumptions fail). That expected value reflects my view that a moderate-to-high month is the likeliest outcome, though uncertainty is large.
Key drivers and how they move the forecast
– Continued localized but intense sectarian/tribal clashes (e.g., Suwayda, southern and coastal clashes): pushes probability mass into 250–1000 bins.
– A lull or effective local ceasefires: shifts mass down toward 100–250 or <100.
– A major offensive, cross‑border escalation, or large massacre: shifts mass up toward >1000.
– ACLED reporting completeness and definitions: if ACLED later incorporates additional reports (or re‑classifies events), reported counts could shift moderately upward; large retrospective upwards revisions are possible but not the default.
Model’s Answer:
Goal and data limitations: The question asks for ACLED’s count of state-based conflict deaths in Syria during September 2025. ACLED is the definitive source for the resolution, but as of 4 September 2025 ACLED’s full September totals cannot be known yet and reporting lags / later corrections are typical. My available context indicates (a) several months in 2025 show non-trivial state-based fatalities (ACLED-cited figures used in background: ~116 state-based deaths in June 2025; a large spike tied to clashes in Suwayda in mid‑July 2025 that produced several hundred fatalities in a short window), (b) the regime collapse in late 2024 and subsequent instability make 2025 more violent than baseline years, and (c) violence has been geographically concentrated (western/southern governorates) but episodic — large spikes can and do happen when a campaign, massacre, or intense local fighting occurs. Given those patterns, September 2025 could be near or above recent monthly averages if violence continues at July/August intensity, but it could also fall back toward lower months (e.g., June) if violence is localized or a de-escalation occurs. Because ACLED counts only state-based deaths (i.e., fatalities involving state actors), some violent incidents that cause many deaths (e.g., communal massacres between non-state groups) may be excluded; that nuance reduces the expected counts relative to “all conflict deaths.”
Baseline and scenario thinking: I set a base-case expectation that September is likelier to resemble a moderately violent month (hundreds of state-based deaths) rather than a very low month (<100) or an extremely high month (>1000). My base-case is driven by (i) ACLED’s recent-month pattern of monthly totals in the low-to-mid hundreds, (ii) the presence of episodic large events (the July spike), and (iii) the tendency for conflict intensity to persist for several weeks after major operations but not necessarily sustain a multi-thousand death monthly rate absent a full-scale conventional campaign across many governorates. I also consider reporting dynamics: ACLED sometimes updates past-month totals as new information emerges, which increases uncertainty around the tail outcomes (>1000 or <100).
Weighting the outcomes: Given the above, the highest single probability mass goes to the 100–250 and 250–500 bins (these two bins capture a “moderate but non-extreme” month). The 500–1000 bin is plausible (sustained high intensity or multiple concurrent spikes), and >1000 is possible but less likely because it would require multiple large-scale simultaneous operations or massacres and/or significant inclusion of previously unreported deaths. <100 is unlikely unless there is an unexpectedly rapid localized cessation of state-based violence or severe reporting suppressio
Key assumptions whose failure would materially change the forecast
1) Assumption: July’s large Suwayda spike was mostly a localized, short-term surge and not the start of a sustained nationwide escalation. I estimate chance this assumption is wrong (i.e., the July pattern is representative of a broader, sustained escalation that continues into September) ≈ 30%. If this assumption fails, probability shifts strongly toward 500–1000 and >1000.
2) Assumption: ACLED’s category “state-based conflict deaths” and its reporting completeness remain similar to recent months (no major methodological change and no long reporting blackout). Probability this assumption is wrong ≈ 15%. If it fails (e.g., ACLED later adds many previously unreported deaths or changes classification), the >1000 tail increases.
3) Assumption: No sudden, large, multi-front conventional offensive or major foreign intervention occurs in the next weeks (an event that would sharply increase fatalities). Probability of such an event occurring between today and the end of September ≈ 20%. If it occurs, the 500–1000 and >1000 bins grow much more likely.
Uncertainty calibration and final judgement: I have historically been wary of overconfidence, so I place non-trivial mass on both the moderate and high-outcome bins and keep a small but meaningful probability on extreme outcomes. Because we’re early in the month, there’s more opportunity for either de‑escalation or a new spike; that increases uncertainty relative to making the same forecast near the end of September. Given ACLED’s recent-month signals and the political-military environment, the most probable single outcome is 100–250 or 250–500 state-based deaths, with a respectable chance that ongoing violence pushes totals into 500–1000 and a small chance of exceeding 1000.
Final probabilistic forecast (sums to 100%)
Less than 100: 5%
Between 100 and 250: 40%
Between 250 and 500: 30%
Between 500 and 1000: 18%
Greater than 1000: 7%
Full details of pgodzinai’s forecast rationale —>
Past forecasts by Phil’s and Jeremy ’s bots —>
Below, a forecast of state-based conflict fatalities for Syria in the VIEWS machine forecasting competition, which is an aggregate of the forecasts of twenty competitors. Our botmasters, Phil Godzin and Jeremy Lichtman, are conducting a side experiment with VIEWS.
