Background

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project) is a non-profit research organisation founded in 2014, headquartered in Wisconsin, US, with staff globally. It collects, codes, and publishes structured data on political violence and protest: every airstrike, armed clash, and demonstration is logged as a discrete event with date, location, actors, and estimated fatalities.

In the 2026 Iran-Lebanon conflict, ACLED has been central to quantifying the pace and spread of fighting. By 18 March, it had recorded 565 Hezbollah attack waves against Israel since 2 March, and documented Hezbollah reaching a peak of 63 operations in a single 24-hour period. Its event-level coding also mapped Israeli infrastructure strikes, including the destruction of Litani River bridges.

ACLED’s granular methodology produces a spatial and temporal picture that raw death-toll counts from bodies like Hengaw or HRANA cannot. Where those organisations count casualties, ACLED codes the pattern: which provinces, which actor combinations, at what tempo. That pattern data is what Amnesty International and ICC investigators use to assess whether Conduct meets the threshold for systematic targeting.

Common Questions

What is ACLED?

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project) is a non-profit research organisation that collects and publishes real-time data on political violence and protest events worldwide, coding each incident by date, location, actors, and estimated fatalities.Source: ACLED

How many Hezbollah attacks has ACLED recorded in 2026?

By 18 March 2026, ACLED had recorded 565 Hezbollah attack waves against Israel since 2 March, with a single-day peak of 63 operations on 24 March.Source: ACLED via Lowdown

How does ACLED data differ from casualty counts like Hengaw?

ACLED codes individual conflict events (strikes, clashes, protests) as discrete data points; Hengaw and HRANA count deaths and injuries. ACLED reveals patterns of where and how often violence occurs; the others reveal human cost.Source: ACLED methodology

Does ACLED track the Lebanon conflict?

Yes. ACLED has tracked the 2026 Lebanon campaign at event level, including Hezbollah rocket and drone barrages, Israeli airstrikes, and infrastructure destruction such as the Litani River bridge demolitions.Source: ACLED

Who uses ACLED conflict data?

Governments, UN agencies (including OCHA), humanitarian organisations, ICC investigators, insurers, and academic researchers use ACLED data for operational planning, accountability reporting, and conflict analysis.Source: ACLED

How the World Sees Them

Iran

Tehran has rejected ACLED’s data as Western-biased, pointing to the gap between its own Health Ministry toll and independent counts. ACLED’s methodology of coding strike events rather than relying on state sources makes official rebuttal difficult.

Lebanon

Lebanese civil society organisations use ACLED data to document the geographic reach of Israeli strikes into areas beyond declared military targets. The bridge destruction data has been submitted to OCHA as evidence of infrastructure warfare.

United States

ACLED is incorporated in Wisconsin and funded partly by US government grants, which has drawn criticism of potential influence over conflict classification. Its Iran-conflict datasets have been cited in Congressional hearings as evidence of the campaign’s geographic scope.

International community

UN agencies and ICC investigators treat ACLED event logs as a primary evidential layer for pattern-of-conduct assessments. Its distinction between military and civilian infrastructure strikes is central to accountability frameworks.