List of active groups
All groups still engaging in armed struggle today.
This is a list of left-wing rebel groups around the world. These groups are seeking change through armed conflict or illegal protest in opposition to an established government. This list does not contain those legal armed forces in communist states.
All groups still engaging in armed struggle today.
All groups who no longer exist because they have met their goals, some are now the established government in their respective region.
All groups that have failed at their end goal or have dissolved, and no longer exist.
All groups that still exist today, but no longer engage in armed struggle as they did in the past.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant and political organization based in the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq. Since 1984 the PKK has been involved in an armed conflict with the Turkish state, with the initial aim of achieving an independent Kurdish state. In March 2016, the PKK joined the Peoples' United Revolutionary Movement, an alliance with the aim of overthrowing the Turkish "fascist" AKP government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The PKK has been designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the European Union, Australia and Japan.
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq, is an Iranian political-militant organization based on Islamic and Marxist ideology. It advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership and installing its own government. The MEK was the "first Iranian organization to develop systematically a modern revolutionary interpretation of Islam – an interpretation that differed sharply from both the old conservative Islam of the traditional clergy and the new populist version formulated in the 1970s by Ayatollah Khomeini and his government". It is also considered the Islamic Republic of Iran's biggest and most active political opposition group.
Insurgency in Northeast India involves multiple armed separatist factions operating in India's northeastern states, which are connected to the rest of India by the Siliguri Corridor, a strip of land as narrow as 14.29 miles (23.00 km) wide. Most factions favour a separate nation while others seek regional autonomy. Some groups demand complete independence. Others wanted religious law.
The internal conflict in Myanmar is a series of primarily ethnic conflicts within Myanmar that began shortly after the country, then known as Burma, became independent from the United Kingdom in 1948. The conflict is the world's longest ongoing civil war.
The Shan State Army was one of the largest insurgent groups that fought government forces in Shan State, Myanmar (Burma). The SSA was founded in 1964 after the merging of two existing insurgent groups.
The Iran–PJAK conflict is an armed conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), which began in 2004 and largely ended in 2011. The group was carrying out attacks in the Kurdistan Province of Iran and other Kurdish-inhabited areas. PJAK is closely affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the primary opponent of the Republic of Turkey in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations. The war is currently the second deadliest of the 21st century.
The Syrian opposition is an umbrella term for the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-government groups with certain territorial control in the form of a proto-state as an alternative Syrian government, claiming to be the legitimate Syrian Arab Republic and also sometimes known just as the Republic of Syria. The Syrian opposition evolved since the beginning of the Syrian conflict from groups calling for the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria and who have opposed its Ba'athist government. Prior to the Syrian Civil War, the term "opposition" had been used to refer to traditional political actors, for example the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change; that is, groups and individuals who have had a history of dissidence against the Syrian state.
The Syrian peace process is the ensemble of initiatives and plans to resolve the Syrian Civil War, which has been ongoing in Syria since 2011 and has spilled beyond its borders. The peace process has been moderated by the Arab League, the UN Special Envoy on Syria, Russia and Western powers. The negotiating parties to end the conflict are typically representatives of the Syrian Ba'athist government and Syrian opposition, while the Western-backed Kurdish forces have stayed out of the negotiations framework. Radical Salafist forces and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have not engaged in any contacts on peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Ceasefires in Myanmar have been heavily utilized by the Burmese government as a policy to contain ethnic rebel groups and create tentative truces. The first ceasefire was arranged by the State Law and Order Restoration Council in 1989, specifically spearheaded by Khin Nyunt, then the Chief of Military Intelligence, with the Kokang-led National Democratic Alliance Army, which had recently split from the Communist Party of Burma due to internal conflicts.
The 2012–14 Quneitra Governorate clashes began in early November 2012, when the Syrian Army began engaging with rebels in several towns and villages of the Quneitra Governorate. The clashes quickly intensified and spilled into the UN-supervised neutral demilitarized zone between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Kachin conflict or Kachin War is one of the multiple conflicts collectively referred to as the internal conflict in Myanmar. Kachin insurgents have been fighting government soldiers since 1961, with only one ceasefire being brokered between them, which lasted for 17 years from 1994 to 2011.
A number of armed groups have involved themselves in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
The Islamic Front was a Sunni Islamist rebel group involved in the Syrian Civil War, which was formed by the union of seven separate groups on 22 November 2013. Its three largest components were Ahrar ash-Sham, the al-Tawhid Brigade and Jaysh al-Islam. The alliance was achieved by expanding the preceding Syrian Islamic Front alliance. It was described as "an umbrella organization rather than a full union", with constituent factions continuing to serve under their own distinct leaderships.
The Army of Mujahideen was a Sunni Islamist rebel group formed in order to fight the Syrian government and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the Syrian Civil War. Originally a coalition of several Islamist rebel groups, it accused ISIL of disrupting "security and stability" in areas that had been captured from the Syrian government. During its establishment in January 2014, the spokesperson of the coalition said it would start operations in Idlib and Aleppo and gradually expand towards the rest of Syria. In December 2016, the Army of Mujahideen was briefly reorganized as Jabhat Ahl al-Sham, but this formation soon fell apart during rebel infighting in January 2017.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), also known as the Kokang Army, is a communist-inspired armed insurgent group in the Kokang region, Myanmar (Burma). The army has existed since 1989, having been the first one to sign a ceasefire with the Burmese government that lasted for about two decades.
The communist insurgency in Myanmar was a conflict fought primarily by the Communist Party of Burma and the Communist Party (Burma) from 1948 to 1988. The conflict ended when the armed wing of the Communist Party of Burma disbanded following the Fall of Communism and the ousting of the Burmese socialist dictatorship.
This article discusses the Dutch involvement in the Syrian Civil War.
