a patchwork of

BBC IS may be down but it is not out

Libya has barely begun to rebuild after the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime and a period of bitter internal conflict.
Syria beyond those areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad is a failed state with a patchwork of militias, many of them Islamist, as hostile to the West as they are to the Assad government.

Can you explain this?

Have you tried our dictionary? Random House's first definition for patchwork: something made up of pieces that do not go together;
mélange[countable]That speech was a patchwork of unconnected clichés.