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Guerrilla War redirects here. See also Guerrilla War (arcade game).

Guerrilla (also called a partisan) is a term borrowed from the Spanish guerrilla meaning little war, and used to describe small combat groups and the individual members of such groups (see Etymology). Guerrilla warfare operates with small, mobile and flexible combat groups called cells, without a front line. Guerrilla warfare is one of the oldest forms of asymmetric warfare. Primary contributors to modern theories of guerrilla war include Mao Zedong, Abd el-Krim, T.E. Lawrence, Wendell Fertig, Regis Debray, Vo Nguyen Giap, Josip Broz Tito, Michael Collins, and Che Guevara. Later students of guerrilla warfare included Swiss Major Hans von Dach who wrote the now widely available Swiss Army field manual "Total Resistance".

Etymology

Guerrilla, from the Spanish term guerra, or War, with the -illa ending diminutive, could be translated as small war. The term was invented in Spain to describe the tactics used to resist the French regime instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte. The -illa term accepts the unequal fight between civilians against an organized State Army. Its meaning was soon broadened to refer to any similar resistance of any time or place. The Spanish word for guerrilla fighter is guerrillero. The change of usage of guerrilla from the tactics employed to the person implementing them is a late 19th century mistake: in most languages the word still denotes the specific style of warfare. However, this is changing under the influence of broad English usage.

Tactics

Guerrilla tactics are based on intelligence, ambush, deception, sabotage, and espionage, and an authority through long, low-intensity confrontation. It can be quite successful against an unpopular foreign regime: a guerrilla army may increase the cost of maintaining an occupation or a colonial presence above what the foreign power may wish to bear.

Commando operations are not guerrilla warfare (Richard Taber, “The War of the Flea : Guerrilla Warfare, Theory and Practice”. Paladin, London, 1977) while they lack the political goal. Commando troops, as the British commando, were a branch of the armed forces. Guerrilla warfare is the expression of Sun Tzu's Art of War, in contrast to Clausewitz's unlimited use of brute force.

However, guerrilla warfare has generally been unsuccessful against native regimes, which have nowhere to retreat to and are highly knowledgeable about their own people, society, and culture. The rare examples of successful guerrilla warfare against a native regime include the Cuban Revolution and the Chinese Civil War, as well as the Sandinista overthrow of a military dictatorship in Nicaragua. More common are the unsuccessful examples of guerrilla warfare, which include Malaysia (then Malaya) during the Malayan Emergency, Bolivia, Argentina, and the Philippines. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for an independent homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka, achieved significant military successes against the Sri Lankan military and the government itself for twenty years. It was even able to use these tactics effectively against the IPKF forces sent by India in the mid-1980s, which were later withdrawn for varied reasons, primarily political. The mutual attrition on both sides in the island led to a ceasefire following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Guerrillas in wars against foreign powers do not principally direct their attacks at civilians, as they desire to obtain as much support as possible from the population as part of their tactics. Civilians are primarily attacked or assassinated as punishment for collaboration. Often such an attack will be officially sanctioned by guerrilla command or tribunal. An exception is in civil wars, where both guerrilla groups and organized armies have been known to commit atrocities against the civilian population.

Mao Zedong, during the Chinese civil war, summarized the Red Army's principles of warfare in the following points for his troops: The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue. Mao made a distinction between Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan) and Guerrilla Warfare (youji zhan).

Michael Collins of the Irish Republican Army, who orchestrated the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-1921, had a more succinct principle behind his campaign of intelligence, assassination, and propaganda: create "bloody mayhem".

Guerrillas are in danger of not being recognized as lawful combatants because they may not wear a uniform, (to mingle with the local population), or their uniform and distinctive emblems may not be recognised as such by their opponents. Article 44, sections 3 and 4 of the 1977 First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, "relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts", does recognise combatants who, due to the nature of the conflict, do not wear uniforms as long as they carry their weapons openly during military operations. This gives non-uniformed guerrillas lawful combatant status against countries that have ratified this convention. However the same protocol states in Article 37.1.c that "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status" shall constitute perfidy and is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Guerrilla warfare can constitute psychological terror and submission upon their captors as well. This act of submission is a way of relieving information from an opponent is used by outnumbering the individual.

Guerrilla warfare is classified into two main categories: urban guerrilla warfare and rural guerrilla warfare. In both cases, guerrillas rely on a friendly population to provide supplies and intelligence. Rural guerrillas prefer to operate in regions providing plenty of cover and concealment, especially heavily forested and mountainous areas. Urban guerrillas, rather than melting into the mountains and jungles, blend into the population and are also dependent on a support base among the people.

Foreign support in the form of soldiers, weapons, sanctuary, or, at the very least, statements of sympathy for the guerrillas can greatly increase the chances of victory for an insurgency. However, it is not always necessary.

Maoist theory of people's war divides warfare into three phases. In the first phase, the guerrillas gain the support of the population through attacks on the machinery of government and the distribution of propaganda. In the second phase, escalating attacks are made on the government's military and vital institutions. In the third phase, conventional fighting is used to seize cities, overthrow the government, and take control of the country.

Guerrilla Tactics were summarized into the ' Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla in 1969 by Carlos Marighella. This text was banned in several countries including the United States. This is probably the most comprehensive and informative book on guerrilla strategy ever published, and is available free online. Texts by Che Guevara and Mao Zedong on guerrilla warfare are also available.

John Keats wrote about an American guerrilla leader in World War 2: Colonel Wendell Fertig, who in 1942 organized a large force of guerrillas who harassed the Japanese occupation forces on the Philippine Island of Mindanao all the way up to the liberation of the Philippines in 1945. His abilities were later utilized by the United States Army, when Fertig helped found the United States Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Others included Col. Aaron Bank and Col. Russell Volckmann. Volckmann, in particular, commanded a guerrilla force which operated out of the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, in the Philippines from the beginning of World War II to its conclusion. He remained in radio contact with US Forces, prior to the invasion of Lingayen Gulf.

Guerrilla warfare sometimes involves surrounding nations, which are affected by a popular uprising against the neighbouring government. A case in point was the Mukti Bahini guerrillas who fought alongside the Indian Army in the 14-day Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 against Pakistan that resulted in the creation of the state of Bangladesh.

T.E.Lawrence, best known as "Lawrence of Arabia," introduced a theory of guerrilla warfare tactics in an article he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1938. In that article, he compared guerrilla fighters to a gas. The fighters disperse in the area of operations more or less randomly. They or their cells occupy a very small intrinsic space in that area, just as gas molecules occupy a very small intrinsic space in a container. The fighters may coalesce into groups for tactical purposes, but their general state is dispersed. Such fighters cannot be "rounded up." They cannot be contained. They are extremely difficult to "defeat" because they cannot be brought to battle in significant numbers. The cost in soldiers and material to destroy a significant number of them becomes prohibitive, in all senses, that is physically, economically, morally, etc. It should be noted that Lawrence describes a non-native occupying force as the enemy (e.g. the Turks).

Examples

Examples of successful guerrilla warfare

In many cases, guerrilla tactics allow a small force to hold off a much larger and better equipped enemy for a long time, as in Russia's Second Chechen War and the Second Seminole War fought in the swamps of Florida (United States of America).

Examples of unsuccessful guerrilla warfare

Examples of ongoing guerilla warfare

Guerrillas in Europe

Over centuries of history, many guerrilla movements appeared in Europe to fight foreign occupation forces. The tactics of Roman dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus against Hannibal could be considered a predecessor of guerrilla tactics. In expanding their own Empire, the Romans encountered numerous examples of guerrilla resistance to their legions. During The Deluge in Poland guerrilla tactics were applied. In the 19th century, peoples of the Balkans used guerrilla tactics to fight the Ottoman empire. In the 100 years war between England and France, commander Bertrand du Guesclin used guerilla tactics to pester the English invaders. During the Scanian War, a pro-Danish guerrilla group known as the Snapphane fought against the Swedes. In 17th century Ireland, Irish irregulars called tories and rapparees used guerrilla warfare in the Irish Confederate Wars and the Williamite war in Ireland.

Europe 1800-1900
=Napoleonic Wars
= In the Napoleonic Wars many of the armies lived off the land. This often led to some resistance by the local population if the army did not pay fair prices for produce they consumed. Usually this resistance was sporadic, and not very successful, so it is not classified as guerrilla action. There are three notable exceptions, though:

  • In Napoleon's invasion of Russia of 1812 two actions were ordered by Tsar Alexander which could be seen as initiating guerrilla tactics. The Burning of Moscow after it had been occupied by the Napoleon's Grand Army, so depriving the French of shelter in the city, is a classic guerrilla action. The second was his imperial command that the Russian serfs should attack the French. This did not so much spark a guerrilla war as encourage a revengeful slaughter.

  • In the Peninsular War the British, encouraged by the spontaneous mass resistance in Spain against Napoleon, gave aid to the Spanish guerrillas who tied down tens of thousands of French troops. The continual losses of troops caused Napoleon to describe this conflict his "Spanish ulcer". The British gave this aid because it cost them much less than it would have done to equip British soldiers to face the French troops in conventional warfare. This was one of the most successful partisan wars in history and was where the word guerrilla was first used in this context. The Oxford English Dictionary lists Wellington as the oldest known source, speaking of "Guerrillas" in 1809.

Poet William Wordsworth, a former radical turned conservative, showed a surprising early insight into guerrilla methods in his pamphlet on the Convention of Cintra.

  • "It is manifest that, though a great army may easily defeat or disperse another army, less or greater, yet it is not in a like degree formidable to a determined people, nor efficient in a like degree to subdue them, or to keep them in subjugation–much less if this people, like those of Spain in the present instance, be numerous, and, like them, inhabit a territory extensive and strong by nature. For a great army, and even several great armies, cannot accomplish this by marching about the country, unbroken, but each must split itself into many portions, and the several detachments become weak accordingly, not merely as they are small in size, but because the soldiery, acting thus, necessarily relinquish much of that part of their superiority, which lies in what may be called the engineer of war; and far more, because they lose, in proportion as they are broken, the power of profiting by the military skill of the Commanders, or by their own military habits. The experienced soldier is thus brought down nearer to the plain ground of the inexperienced, man to the level of man: and it is then, that the truly brave man rises, the man of good hopes and purposes; and superiority in moral brings with it superiority in physical power.” (William Wordsworth: Selected Prose, Penguin Classics 1988, page 177-8.)

= Others
=

Europe 1900–2000
=Anglo-Irish War
=

The wars between Ireland and the British state, have been long and over the centuries have covered the full spectrum of the types of warfare. The Irish fought the first successful 20th century war of independence against the British Empire and the United Kingdom. After the military failure of the Easter Rising in 1916, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) resorted to guerrilla tactics involving both urban warfare and flying columns in the countryside during the Anglo-Irish War (Irish War of Independence) of 1919 to 1921. The chief IRA commanders in the localities during this period were Tom Barry, Dan Breen, Liam Lynch, and Seán Mac Eoin. The British security forces were fought to a standstill and the of the UK government agreed to meet representatives of the Irish uprising, who since the 1918 General Election held seventy-three of the one hundred and five parliamentary seats for the island, to negotiate a settlement, leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty It created the Irish Free State of 26 counties as a dominion within the British Empire; the other 6 counties remained part of the UK. Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army split into pro- and anti-Treaty factions with the anti-Treaty IRA forces losing the Irish Civil War (1921-23) which followed. The partition of Ireland laid the seeds for the later troubles.

= World War II
= In World War II, several guerrilla organisations (often known as resistance movements) operated in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany. These included the Polish Home Army, Soviet partisans (see also Russian Guerrilla Warfare of WWII), Yugoslav Partisans, Bulgarian NOVA ,French resistance or Maquis, Italian partisans, ELAS and royalist forces in Greece. Many of these organisations received help from the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which along with the commandos was initiated by Winston Churchill to ""set Europe ablaze". The SOE was originally designated as 'Section D' of MI6 but its aid to resistance movements to start fires clashed with MI6's primary role as an intelligence-gathering agency. When Britain was under threat of invasion, SOE trained Auxiliary Units to conduct guerrilla warfare in the event of invasion. Not only did SOE help the resistance to tie down many German units as garrison troops, so directly aiding the conventional war effort, but also guerrilla incidents in occupied countries were useful in the propaganda war, helping to repudiate German claims that the occupied countries were pacified and broadly on the side of the Germans. When the U.S. entered the war, the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) co-operated and enhanced the work of SOE as well as working on its own initiatives in the Far East. Even the Home Guard were trained in guerrilla warfare in the case of invasion of England. Osterly Park was the first of 3 such schools established to train the Home Guard.

= Post World War II
= After World War II, during the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of fighters in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (see Forest Brothers) participated in unsuccessful guerrilla warfare against Soviet occupation.

In the late 1960s the Troubles began again in Northern Ireland. They had their origins in the partition of Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. They came to an end with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The peace is fragile and it is too early to tell if a permanent end to the conflict has occurred and which group, if any, won. The violence was characterised by an armed campaign against the British presence in Northern Ireland by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, British counter-insurgency policy, and attacks on the nationalist population by loyalist paramilitaries who had strong links to the British state forces.http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/collusion/source.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/2955941.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/2956337.stm

Although both loyalist and republican paramilitaries carried out terrorist atrocities against civilians which were often tit-for-tat, a case can be made for saying that attacks such as the Provisional IRA carried out on British soldiers at Warrenpoint in 1979 was a well planned guerrilla ambush. The PIRA, Loyalist paramilitaries and various anti-Good Friday Agreement splinter-groups could be called guerrillas but are usually called terrorists by both the British and Irish governments. The news media such as the BBC and CNN will often use the term "gunmen" as in "IRA gunmen" or "Loyalist gunmen" committed a "terrorist" act. Since 1995 CNN also uses guerrilla as in "IRA guerrilla" and "Protestant guerrilla" . Reuters, in accordance with its principle of not using the word terrorist except in direct quotes, refers to "guerrilla groups".

Europe 2000 – present
Currently, the Corsican FLNC and other groups such as the Greek Marxist Revolutionary Organization 17 November claim to be guerrillas, but are commonly recognized as terrorists since they have murdered civilians on almost all occasions (collateral damages according to them) and not always purely legitimate military targets. Furthermore, this is how the governments and media of their respective countries (foreign invader governments according to these groups) prefer to refer to them.

The ongoing war between pro-independence groups in Chechnya and the Russian government is currently the most active guerrilla war in Europe. Most of the incidents reported by the Western news media are very gory terrorist acts against Russian civilians committed by Chechen separatists outside Chechnya. However, within Chechnya the war has many of the characteristics of a classic guerrilla war. See the article History of Chechnya for more details.

Guerrillas in the American Revolutionary War

While the American Revolutionary War is often thought of as a guerrilla war, guerrilla tactics were uncommon, and almost all of the battles involved conventional set-piece battles. Some of the confusion may be due to the fact that generals George Washington and Nathaniel Greene successfully used a strategy of harassment and progressively grinding down British forces instead of seeking a decisive battle, in a classic example of asymmetric warfare. Nevertheless the theater tactics used by most of the American forces were those of conventional warfare. One of the exceptions was in the south, where the brunt of the war was upon militia forces who fought the enemy British troops and their Loyalist supporters, but used concealment, surprise, and other guerrilla tactics to much advantage. General Francis Marion of South Carolina, who often attacked the British at unexpected places and then would fade into the swamps by the time the British were able to get organized enough to return fire, was named by them The Swamp Fox. However, even in the south, most of the major engagements were set-piece battles of conventional warfare. See also Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, for another Revolutionary example.

Guerrillas in the American Civil War

Irregular warfare in the American Civil War followed the patterns of irregular warfare in 19th century Europe. Structurally, irregular warfare can be divided into three different types conducted during the Civil War: 'People's War', 'partisan warfare', and 'raiding warfare'. The concept of 'People's war,' first described by Clausewitz in On War, was the closest example of a mass guerrilla movement in the era. In general, this type of irregular warfare was conducted in the hinterland of the Border States (Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and northwestern Virginia), and was marked by a vicious neighbor against neighbor quality. One such example was the opposing irregular forces operating in Missouri and northern Arkansas from 1862 to 1865, most of which were pro-Confederate or pro-Union in name only and preyed on civilians and isolated military forces of both sides with little regard of politics. From these semi-organized guerrillas, several groups formed and were given some measure of legitimacy by their governments. Quantrill's Raiders, who terrorized pro-Confederate civilians and fought Federal troops in large areas of Missouri and Kansas, was one such unit. Another notorious unit, with debatable ties to the Confederate military, was led by Champ Ferguson along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Ferguson became one of the only figures of Confederate cause to be executed after the war. Dozens of other small, localized bands terrorized the countryside throughout the border region during the war, bringing total war to the area that lasted until the end of the Civil War and, in some areas, beyond.

Partisan warfare, in contrast, more closely resembles Commando operations of the 20th century. Partisans were small units of conventional forces, controlled and organized by a military force for operations behind enemy lines. The 1862 Partisan Ranger Act passed by the Confederate Congress authorized the formation of these units and gave them legitimacy, which placed them in a different category than the common 'bushwhacker' or 'guerrilla'. John Singleton Mosby formed a partisan unit which was very effective in tying down Federal forces behind Union lines in northern Virginia in the last two years of the war.

Lastly, deep raids by conventional cavalry forces were often considered 'irregular' in nature. The "Partisan Brigades" of Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan operated as part of the cavalry forces of the Confederate Army of Tennessee in 1862 and 1863. They were given specific missions to destroy logistical hubs, railroad bridges, and other strategic targets to support the greater mission of the Army of Tennessee. By mid-1863, with the destruction of Morgan's raiders during the Great Raid of 1863, the Confederacy conducted few deep cavalry raids in the latter years of the war, mostly due to the losses in experienced horsemen and the offensive operations of the Union army. Federal cavalry conducted several successful raids during the war but in general used their cavalry forces in a more conventional role. A good exception was the 1863 Grierson's Raid, which did much to set the stage for General Ulysses S. Grant's victory during the Vicksburg Campaign.

Federal counter-guerrilla operations were very successful in preventing the success of Confederate guerrilla warfare. In Arkansas, Federal forces used a wide variety of strategies to defeat irregulars. These included the use of Arkansas Unionist forces as anti-guerrilla troops, the use of riverine forces such as gunboats to control the waterways, and the provost marshal military law enforcement system to spy on suspected guerrillas and to imprison those captured. Against Confederate raiders, the Federal army developed an effective cavalry themselves and reinforced that system by a large number of blockhouses and fortification to defend strategic targets.

However, Federal attempts to defeat Mosby's Partisan Rangers fell short of success due to Mosby's use of very small units (10–15 men) operating in areas considered friendly to the Rebel cause. Another regiment known as the "Thomas Legion," consisting of white and anti-Union Cherokee Indians, morphed into a guerrilla force and continued fighting in the remote mountain back-country of western North Carolina for a month after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. That unit was never completely suppressed by Union forces, but voluntarily ceased hostilities after capturing the town of Waynesville on May 10, 1865.

In the late 20th century several historians have focused on the non-use of guerrilla warfare to prolong the war. Near the end of the war, there were those in the Confederate government, notably Jefferson Davis who advocated continuing the southern fight as a guerrilla conflict. He was opposed by generals such as Robert E. Lee who ultimately believed that surrender and reconciliation were better than guerrilla warfare.

Guerrilla warfare during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Despite a common misconception, both Nationalist and Communist forces were active underground resistance in Japanese-occupied areas during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Even before the outbreak of total war in 1937, partisans were already present in Manchuria hampering Japan's occupation of the region. After the initial phases of the war, when large swaths of the North China Plain rapidly fell to the Japanese, underground resistance, supported by either Communist sympathisers or composed of disguised Nationalist soldiers, would soon rise up to combat the garrison forces. They were quite successful, able to sabotage railroad routes and ambush reinforcements. Many major campaigns, such as the four failed invasions of Changsha, were caused by overly-stretched supply lines, lack of reinforcements, and ambushes by irregulars. The Communist cells, many having decades of prior experience in guerrilla warfare against the Nationalists, usually fared much better, and many Nationalist underground groups were subsequently absorbed into Communist ones. Usually in Japanese-occupied areas, the IJA only controlled the cities and railroad routes, with most of them countryside either left alone or with active guerrilla presence. The People's Republic of China has emphasised their contribution to the Chinese war effort, going as far to say that in addition to a "overt theatre", which in many cases they deny was effective, there was also a "covert theatre", which they claim did much to stop the Japanese advance.

Guerrilla Warfare in the Chinese Civil War

Both before and after the Sino-Japanese War, there was continuous fighting between Nationalists and Communists. The Communists used a mix of Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare, with guerrillas harassing and regular armies striking unexpectedly. On several different fronts, most notably Manchuria, this mix wore down the much larger Nationalist forces.

Guerrilla Warfare in the Pacific and East Asian theatre of World War II

There was guerrilla fighting in Pacific and East Asian theatre of World War II. Japan's invasion of China also prompted guerrilla activity in rural areas of occupied China. The Chinese became increasingly successful during the war, and tied down Japanese troops in China throughout the war. US troops working with Filipino guerrillas conducted guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in the Philippines, as did Allied forces in the South-East Asian theatre.

See also OSS Detachment 101, V Force, Force 136, Special Operations Australia (codenamed Force 137), Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, Viet Minh

Guerrillas in Israel and the Palestinian Territories

European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic violence (especially Russian pogroms) immigrated in increasing numbers to Palestine. When the British restricted Jewish immigration to the region (see White Paper of 1939), Jewish Palestinians began to use a type of guerrilla warfare for two purposes: to bring in more Jewish refugees, and to turn the tide of British sentiment at home. Jewish groups such as the Lehi and the Irgun - many of whom had experience in the Warsaw ghetto battles against the Nazis, fought British soldiers whenever they could, including the bombing of the King David Hotel.

The creation of the state of Israel might be considered one of the greatest achievements of guerrilla warfare. The Jewish forces were a spontaneous group of civilians working without formal military structure, fighting the British Empire that had just emerged victorious from World War II.

(Read about the amalgamation of these guerrilla groups into the Israel Defence Force and subsequent victory over its Arab neighbors in the 1948 War of Independence)

Palestinians initiated their own guerrilla warfare against the new Jewish state, including Yasser Arafat, whose PLO called for the destruction of Israel in 1964, 3 years before the Six-Day War.

Guerrillas in Latin America

In the Mexican Revolution from 1913 to 1920, the populist revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata employed the use of predominately guerrilla tactics. His forces, composed entirely of peasant farmers turned soldiers, wore no uniform and would easily blend into the general population after an operation's completion. They would have young soldiers, called "dynamite boys", hurl cans filled with explosives into enemy barracks, and then a large number of lightly armed soldiers would emerge from the surrounding area to attack it. Although Zapata's forces met considerable success, his strategy backfired as government troops, unable to distinguish his soldiers from the normal population, waged a broad and brutal campaign against the latter.

In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Latin America had a number of urban guerrilla movements whose strategy was to destabilize regimes and provoke a counter-reaction by the military. The theory was that a harsh military regime would oppress the middle classes who would then support the guerrillas and create a popular uprising.

While these movements did destabilize governments, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Guatemala, and Peru to the point of military intervention, the military generally proceeded to completely wipe out the guerrilla movements, usually committing several atrocities among both civilians and armed insurgents in the process.

Several other left-wing guerrilla movements, often backed by Cuba and/or the Soviet Union, attempted to overthrow US-backed governments or right-wing military dictatorships. US-backed Contra guerrillas attempted to overthrow the left-wing elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua, though most of these groups should be considered mercenary juntas rather than rooted guerrillas. The Sandinista Revolution saw the involvement of Women and the Armed Struggle in Nicaragua.

South African War

Guerrilla tactics were used extensively by the forces of the Afrikaner republics in the Second Boer War in South Africa 1899-1902. After the British defeated the Boer armies in conventional warfare and occupied their capitals of Pretoria and Bloemfontein, Boer commandos reverted to mobile warfare. Units led by leaders such as Christian de Wet harassed slow-moving British columns and attacked railway lines and encampments. The Boers were almost all mounted and possessed long range magazine loaded rifles. This gave them the ability to attack quickly and cause many casualties before retreating rapidly when British reinforcements arrived. In the early period of the guerrilla war, Boer commandoes could be very large, containing several thousand men and even field artillery. However, as their supplies of food and ammunition gave out, the Boers increasingly broke up into smaller units and relied on captured British arms and ammunition.

To counter these tactics, the British under Kitchener interned Boer civilians into concentration camps and built hundreds of blockhouses all over the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Eventually, the Boer guerrillas surrendered in 1902, but the British granted them generous terms in order to bring the war to an end. This showed how effective guerrilla tactics could be in extracting concessions from a militarily more powerful enemy.

Disputed Territory of Kashmir

Kashmiri guerrillas constantly cause destruction in the Disputed Territory of Kashmir. The territory has been disputed between both India and Pakistan, India has accused Pakistan of training and aiding these guerrillas in the past. Guerrillas were known to aid Pakistan during the 1999 Kargil Conflict.

The territory has been disputed since the Indo-Pakistani Partition in 1947. Many guerrillas fight for an independent Kashmiri state, other guerrillas wish to annex parts of Kashmir into Pakistani-Administered Kashmir.

Vietnam War

Within the United States, the Vietnam War is commonly thought of as a guerrilla war. However this is a simplification of a much more complex situation which followed the pattern outlined by Maoist theory.

The National Liberation Front (NLF), drawing its ranks from the South Vietnamese peasantry and working class, used guerrilla tactics in the early phases of the war. However, by 1965 when U.S. involvement escalated, the National Liberation Front was in the process of being supplanted by regular units of the North Vietnamese Army.

The NVA regiments organized along traditional military lines, were supplied via the Ho Chi Minh trail rather than living off the land, and had access to weapons such as tanks and artillery which are not normally used by guerrilla forces.

Over time, more of the fighting was conducted by the North Vietnamese Army and the character of the war become increasingly conventional. The final offensive into South Vietnam in 1975 was a mostly conventional military operation in which guerilla warfare played a minor, supporting role.

The Cu Chi Tunnels (Địa đạo Củ Chi) was a major base for guerrilla warfare during the Vietnam War. Located about 60km northwest of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the Viet Cong used the complex system tunnels to hide and live during the days and come up to fight at nights.

Guerrilla warfare in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Kurdish Northern Iraq

Guerrilla warfare formed an integral part of the US/NATO military campaigns in Kosovo in the late 1990s and Afghanistan in 2001, which created a unique style of warfare combining low-technology guerrilla warfare with high-technology air power. In these campaigns, guerrilla fighters with coordination from special forces would engage the enemy, forcing them to move out into the open where they could be destroyed using air power supplied by the United States. In both cases, the guerrillas were able to take advantage of their local knowledge and willingness to take casualties to great effect when supplemented by outside air power. In Kosovo the Kosovo Liberation Army, a separatist paramilitary force, was aided by the NATO air forces. In Afghanistan numerous anti-Taliban militias (consisting of regular soldiers and guerrillas), including the Afghan Northern Alliance, were aided by US air power. This formula was used again, in War on Iraq, against the Iraqi Army by Kurdish Peshmerga guerrillas with the aid of U.S. special forces and the U.S. Air Force.

Guerrillas in Iraq (since 2003)

Many guerrilla tactics are used by the Iraqi insurgency against the US-led coalition. Such tactics include exploding vehicles, people and other forms of suicide bombing, ambushes, and hit and run raids . They have injured more than 18,000 coalition troops and killed over 2,700, coalition troops including over 2,500 US soldiers. And have established control dominance over the Al Anbar Governorate. *.

Influence on the arts

See also

References

Notes

External links

Guerrilla warfare

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