Eastern DRC: Armed Group Fragmentation, Mineral Revenues and the Conflict Economy

Why the battlefield has not followed the diplomats

Independent analytical report | June 2026

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The eastern DRC crisis is not a single conflict. It is an ecosystem of conflicts sustained by distinct mobilisation logics, overlapping armed actors and a profitable conflict economy. M23/AFC, the ADF, CODECO, FARDC-aligned militias and local armed networks do not all respond to the same incentives, and many are only partially connected to the diplomatic processes designed to address the crisis.

This report examines the security environment, the role of mineral revenues and trade corridor taxation, and the coercive instruments required to alter the incentive structure that sustains armed mobilisation. ASA assesses that the conflict economy is the structural engine of violence in eastern DRC. No peace process that leaves this economy intact will produce durable stabilisation.

The Rubaya coltan zone illustrates the connection between armed territorial control and global supply chains. Control of mineral areas is not only a military objective; it is a business model. Stabilisation therefore requires action not only against commanders but also against traders, transporters, exporters, financial intermediaries and international buyers that enable conflict minerals to enter legal markets.

Core Judgments

• Eastern DRC is an ecosystem of conflicts rather than a single conflict system. A DRC-Rwanda agreement would not automatically resolve ADF violence, CODECO mobilisation or local militia activity.
• M23/AFC retains significance because territorial control provides military leverage, administrative influence and revenue through taxation, trade routes and mineral areas.
• The ADF’s operational logic is distinct from M23/AFC’s and is less responsive to ceasefire diplomacy focused on the DRC-Rwanda-M23/AFC triangle.
• CODECO and other localised conflict systems are rooted in land, identity, local power and resource disputes that require separate stabilisation tools.
• The conflict economy is the primary structural incentive for continued armed mobilisation. Armed control remains profitable.
• Sanctions can become an enforcement tool only if applied consistently, evidence-first and across the commercial networks that convert armed control into revenue.

1. The Security Environment: A Battlefield Outpacing Diplomacy

The security environment in eastern DRC remains fundamentally incompatible with the stabilisation trajectory promised by the diplomatic architecture. The existence of peace frameworks has not yet altered the operational incentives of armed actors on the ground.

The battlefield is fragmented. Armed movements hold territory, tax populations, manage corridors, extract resources, punish communities and negotiate from positions built through coercion. Diplomatic commitments made at state or leadership level do not automatically penetrate these armed networks.

ASA assesses that stabilisation strategies calibrated only to the DRC-Rwanda-M23/AFC triangle will remain incomplete. That triangle is central, but it is not the entire conflict. The eastern DRC crisis contains regional, national, local, economic and criminal dimensions that reinforce one another.

2. M23/AFC: Territorial Control, Administration and Revenue

M23/AFC remains the most strategically significant armed actor in the current diplomatic process because its territorial control directly intersects with the DRC-Rwanda security dispute. The group retains influence in North Kivu and exercises administrative and taxation functions in areas it holds.

Its military capacity is sustained by a combination of external support, disputed but central to the process, and the conflict economy generated by control of mineral zones, trade corridors and population taxation.

Territorial control gives M23/AFC several advantages. It provides military depth, political leverage, economic revenue and bargaining power in negotiations. It also allows the group to influence civilian administration, extract resources and embed itself in local governance structures.

This means that ceasefire compliance is not simply a matter of military discipline. It is a question of whether the group’s leadership calculates that compliance offers more value than continued territorial leverage. At present, the economic and political benefits of control remain substantial.

3. Rubaya and Critical Minerals: The Business Model of Armed Control

The Rubaya area in North Kivu is one of the clearest examples of the intersection between military strategy and mineral economics. As a major coltan production zone, Rubaya is militarily important, financially valuable and globally connected to supply chains serving consumer electronics, electric vehicles and telecommunications.

Control of Rubaya is not only control of territory. It is control of revenue. Minerals extracted from areas under armed influence can be taxed, transported, laundered through trading networks and eventually integrated into legal markets far from the conflict zone.

The connection between armed control in eastern Congo and global technology supply chains is operational, not rhetorical. Demand from international markets creates the commercial signal that makes armed extraction profitable. The conflict economy therefore links local violence to regional smuggling networks and global procurement systems.

Peace diplomacy that addresses troop movements and ceasefire lines while leaving the commercial infrastructure of conflict intact will not deliver durable stabilisation. Armed actors who retain revenue access can absorb diplomatic pressure and preserve the capacity for future mobilisation.

4. The ADF and Multi-Front Insecurity

The Allied Democratic Forces continue to threaten civilian populations in North Kivu and Ituri through killings, village burnings, abductions and intimidation. The ADF’s operational logic differs from M23/AFC’s. It is less centred on conventional territorial bargaining and more oriented toward population punishment, social disruption and resilient clandestine networks.

This makes the ADF less responsive to the tools currently emphasised in the peace process. A ceasefire framework linked to M23/AFC cannot by itself neutralise ADF violence. Political dialogue with regional actors does not automatically dismantle ADF cells, financing, recruitment or local intimidation mechanisms.

The ADF dimension means that even a successful DRC-Rwanda arrangement could coexist with severe civilian insecurity. Stabilisation planning must therefore distinguish between armed actors that can be pulled into negotiation logic and those that require a different mix of civilian protection, intelligence, justice, community security and cross-border disruption tools.

5. CODECO and Localised Conflict Systems

CODECO continues to fuel violence in Ituri, often framed around Lendu-Hema tensions over land, local political power and access to resources. These mobilisation dynamics are rooted in local grievances and cannot be solved through regional diplomacy alone.

Localised conflict systems have their own commanders, patronage structures, grievances and economies. Some are connected to broader regional networks; others are primarily local but opportunistically benefit from national and regional instability.

A stabilisation strategy must therefore include local peacebuilding, land dispute mechanisms, accountability for atrocities, community protection and economic alternatives. Without these, national-level agreements risk reducing one dimension of violence while leaving other conflict systems intact.

6. The Conflict Economy: Structural Engine of Violence

The central analytical conclusion of this report is that eastern DRC’s conflict is sustained primarily by economics. Ideology, identity, fear and security narratives are real, but armed territorial control remains profitable, and profitability gives violence resilience.

Armed groups extract revenue from mineral taxation, trade route management, population levies, extortion, trafficking and protection rackets. FARDC-aligned militias and local networks also benefit from parallel taxation systems in areas nominally under government control.

The conflict economy includes not only armed commanders but traders, transporters, exporters, financial intermediaries, regional brokers and international buyers. These actors convert armed territorial control into disposable revenue and market access.

This creates a durable incentive structure. A commander who controls a mining site or corridor can finance recruitment, weapons, logistics and political influence. A trader who buys minerals without provenance discipline keeps the commercial chain alive. An exporter who launders minerals into legal channels gives the system access to global markets.

Stabilisation requires severing these chains. The goal should not be only to punish armed actors but to make armed control economically irrational.

7. Sanctions: From Signalling to Enforcement

U.S. sanctions have emerged as the most significant coercive pressure instrument available to external actors. Their value depends on whether they are applied consistently, transparently and with consequences that alter behaviour.

ASA identifies four principles for effective sanctions in the eastern DRC context.

1. Obligations-based targeting: sanctions should be explicitly tied to measurable obligations under the Washington and Doha frameworks, including withdrawal of external support, ceasefire compliance, verification access and termination of parallel taxation.

2. Balanced application: sanctions must apply to all spoilers, including Rwanda-linked actors, M23/AFC structures, FARDC-aligned militias, FDLR-linked networks and commercial actors where evidence supports designation.

3. Supply-chain targeting: sanctions should reach traders, exporters, financial intermediaries and international buyers that convert conflict minerals into revenue.

4. Clear compliance pathways: every designation should identify the obligation violated, the evidentiary basis and the verified actions required for review or removal.

Sanctions that follow political alignment rather than evidence will be treated as political warfare. Sanctions that follow evidence wherever it leads can become enforcement architecture.

8. Stabilisation Requirements

A credible stabilisation strategy should combine security, economic and accountability measures. It should not assume that a diplomatic agreement alone will change the calculations of actors whose income depends on violence.

Priority measures should include enhanced due diligence for mineral supply chains; verified exclusion of conflict minerals from export channels; sanctions against commercial facilitators; monitoring of trade corridors; local accountability mechanisms; disruption of armed taxation systems; and protection measures for communities affected by retaliation or resource competition.

The central test is whether the cost of obstruction exceeds the cost of compliance. As long as violence remains profitable, armed actors will have the capacity to wait out diplomacy.

Outlook to End-2026

ASA assesses that the conflict economy will remain the dominant obstacle to durable stabilisation through the end of 2026. Armed actors are likely to maintain revenue systems unless external pressure reaches the commercial networks on which those systems depend.

M23/AFC will remain central to diplomacy, but ADF and CODECO violence will continue to demonstrate the limits of a peace process focused on a single armed actor or state-to-state track.

The minerals dimension will become increasingly politically contested as critical minerals diplomacy intensifies globally. Congolese civil society and opposition actors are likely to scrutinise any peace arrangement that appears to link de-escalation with external resource access.

Conclusion

Eastern DRC’s battlefield has not followed the diplomats because the conflict is sustained by incentives that diplomacy has not yet changed. Armed territorial control remains profitable. Local conflicts remain unresolved. Criminal and commercial networks continue to benefit from insecurity.

Peace will become possible when violence becomes more costly than compliance. That requires not only agreements, but enforcement; not only commanders, but supply chains; not only ceasefire lines, but revenue disruption.

The eastern DRC crisis is a regional security crisis, a local conflict ecosystem and a global supply-chain problem. Any strategy that treats only one of those dimensions will remain incomplete.

Disclaimer and Analytical Services

African Security Analysis (ASA) is an independent analytical institution. This report does not represent the position of any government, international organisation, armed actor, diplomatic process, political movement, or commercial entity.

All assessments, findings, projections and judgments contained in this report are produced independently by African Security Analysis (ASA) and reflect its own analytical methodology and professional assessment.

African Security Analysis (ASA) can also produce tailored reports, strategic briefs, risk assessments and in-depth analytical products upon request, based on the specific needs of institutions, organisations, companies, researchers or decision-makers.

Reproduction or citation of this report is permitted with proper attribution to African Security Analysis (ASA).