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This is a list of active rebel groups around the world. A "rebel group" is defined here as a polity that uses armed conflict in opposition to established government (or governments) for reasons such as to seek political change or to establish, maintain, or to gain independence.
Rebel groups are listed by the states within which they operate.
Groups that "control territory" are defined as any group that hold any populated or inhabited town, city, village, or defined area that is under the direct administration or military control of the group. Such control may be contested and might be temporary or fluctuating, especially under the circumstance of conflict. It does not include the governments of stable breakaway states or other states with limited recognition.
Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is a terrorist Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Pakistan-based terrorist group, militant and Islamist Salafi jihadist organisation. Described as one of Pakistan's "most powerful jihadi groups", it is most infamous outside Pakistan. The organisation's primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded in 1985–86 by Hafiz Saeed, Zafar Iqbal Shehbaz Abdullah Azzam and several other Islamist mujahideen with funding from Osama bin Laden during the Soviet–Afghan War. It has been designated a terrorist group by numerous countries.
Jaish-e-Mohammed is a Pakistan-based Deobandi Jihadist terrorist group active in Kashmir. The group's primary motive is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it into Pakistan.
Terrorism in Pakistan, according to the Ministry of Interior, poses a significant threat to the people of Pakistan. The wave of terrorism in Pakistan is believed to have started in 2000. Attacks and fatalities in Pakistan were on a "declining trend" between 2015 and 2019, but has gone back up from 2020-2022, with 971 fatalities in 2022.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a decentralised militant group in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. MEND's actions – including sabotage, theft, property destruction, guerrilla warfare, and kidnapping – are part of the broader conflict in the Niger Delta and reduced Nigeria's oil production by 33% between 2006-07.
Jundallah, also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI), was a Sunni Salafi militant organization based in Sistan and Baluchestan, a province in southeast Iran. The group shared its name with another Baloch group active in Pakistani Balochistan as part of the same insurgency, that claims to be fighting for the "equal rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran".
The current conflict in the Niger Delta first arose in the early 1990s over tensions between foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who feel they are being exploited, particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw. Ethnic and political unrest continued throughout the 1990s despite the return to democracy and the election of the Obasanjo government in 1999. Struggle for oil wealth and environmental harm over its impacts has fueled violence between ethnic groups, causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic militia groups, Nigerian military and police forces, notably the Nigerian Mobile Police. The violence has contributed to Nigeria's ongoing energy supply crisis by discouraging foreign investment in new power generation plants in the region.
Al-Badr is an Islamist militant group operating in the Kashmir region. The group was allegedly formed by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in June 1998. It is believed the group was encouraged by the ISI to operate independently from their previous umbrella group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM). Prior to the group's separation from HM, they participated in the fighting in Afghanistan in 1990 as part of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-l-Islami (HIG) alongside other anti-Soviet Afghan mujihadeen. India and the United States have declared it a terrorist organisation and banned it. Pakistan has long been a difficult and disruptive neighbor of Afghanistan, increasing Afghanistan's instability by providing intelligence, weapons and security to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. But now Pakistan is facing strong backlash both domestically and internationally against its policy of militant sponsorship.
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign are militant Islamist movements like Al-Qaeda, Taliban and their allies. Other major targets included the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed in an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency. After its territorial expansion in 2014, the Islamic State militia has also emerged as a key adversary of the United States.
The Pakistani Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism refers to the involvement of Pakistan in terrorism through the backing of various designated terrorist organizations. Pakistan has been frequently accused by various countries, including its neighbours Afghanistan, Iran, and India, as well as by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, of involvement in a variety of terrorist activities in both its local region of South Asia and beyond. Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border have been described as an effective safe haven for terrorists by Western media and the United States Secretary of Defense, while India has accused Pakistan of perpetuating the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir by providing financial support and armaments to militant groups, as well as by sending state-trained terrorists across the Line of Control and de jure India–Pakistan border to launch attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir and India proper, respectively. According to an analysis published by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in 2008, Pakistan was reportedly, "with the possible exception of Iran, perhaps the world's most active sponsor of terrorist groups... aiding these groups that pose a direct threat to the United States. Pakistan's active participation has caused thousands of deaths in the region; all these years Pakistan has been supportive to several terrorist groups despite several stern warnings from the international community." Daniel Byman, a professor and senior analyst of terrorism and security at the Center For Middle East Policy, also wrote that, "Pakistan is probably 2008's most active sponsor of terrorism". In 2018, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, suggested that the Pakistani government played a role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group. In July 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, on an official visit to the United States, acknowledged the presence of some 30,000–40,000 armed terrorists operating on Pakistani soil. He further stated that previous administrations were hiding this truth, particularly from the United States, for the last 15 years during the War on Terror.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is a Deobandi supremacist, terrorist and militant organisation based in Afghanistan. The organisation operates in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is an offshoot of anti-Shia party Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The LeJ was founded by former SSP activists Riaz Basra, Malik Ishaq, Akram Lahori, and Ghulam Rasool Shah.
Pakistan's role in the War on Terror is a widely discussed topic among policy-makers of various countries, political analysts and international delegates around the world. Pakistan has simultaneously received allegations of harbouring and aiding terrorists and commendation for its anti-terror efforts. Since 2001, the country has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan.
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. The following is a timeline of events linked to the War on Terror.
The 2016 Niger Delta conflict is an ongoing conflict around the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in a bid for the secession of the region, which was a part of the breakaway state of Biafra. It follows on-and-off conflict in the Christian-dominated southern Niger Delta in the preceding years, as well as an insurgency in the Muslim-dominated northeast.
Kuwait has been frequently accused of supporting terrorism financing within its borders. Kuwait has been described as the world's biggest source of terrorism funding, particularly for ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
