Counterinsurgency in the context of "Central Armed Police Forces"

State terrorism is terrorism conducted by a state against its own citizens or another state's citizens.It contrasts with state-sponsored terrorism, in which a violent non-state actor conducts an act of terror under sponsorship of a state.

Governments accused of state terrorism may justify these actions as efforts to combat internal dissent, suppress insurgencies, or maintain national security, often framing their actions within the context of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency. Accused actions of state terrorism are normally also criticised as severe violations of human rights and international law.

Foreign internal defense (FID) is a term used by the military in several countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, to describe an integrated or multi-country approach to combating actual or threatened insurgency in a foreign state. This foreign state is known as the Host Nation (HN) under the US (and generally accepted NATO) doctrine. The term counter-insurgency is commonly used for FID.

FID involves military deployment of counter-insurgency specialists. According to the US doctrinal manual, Joint Publication 3-22: Foreign Internal Defense (FID), these specialists occasionally get involved with the actual fighting. This doctrine calls for a close working relationship between the Host Nation government and security specialists, which could include diplomatic, information, intelligence, military, economic, and other specialties. A successful FID action is one that leads to the suppression of actual violence. If combat operations are required, Host Nation security forces take the lead. FID is tasked with external support and training where required.

Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. In wartime operations, the military police may support the main fighting force with force protection, convoy security, screening, rear reconnaissance, logistic traffic management, counterinsurgency, and detainee handling.

Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism and violent extremism.

If an act of terrorism occurs as part of a broader insurgency (and insurgency is included in the definition of terrorism) then counterterrorism may additionally employ counterinsurgency measures. The United States Armed Forces uses the term "foreign internal defense" for programs that support other countries' attempts to suppress insurgency, lawlessness, or subversion, or to reduce the conditions under which threats to national security may develop.

Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia (Spanish: paramilitares de derecha) are paramilitary groups acting in opposition to revolutionary Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population. These right-wing paramilitary groups control a large majority of the illegal drug trade in Colombia of cocaine and other substances. The Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups.

The first paramilitary groups were organized by the Colombian military following recommendations made by U.S. military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia during the Cold War to combat leftist political activists and armed guerrilla groups. The development of more modern paramilitary groups has also involved elite landowners, drug traffickers, members of the security forces, politicians, civilians, and multinational corporations. Paramilitary violence today is principally targeted towards supposed left-wing insurgents and their supporters.

The Río Negro massacres were a series of killings of villagers by the government of Guatemala between 1980 and 1982.

In 1978, in the face of civil war, the Guatemalan government proceeded with its economic development program, including the construction of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam. Financed in large part by the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, the Chixoy Dam was built in Rabinal, a region of the department of Baja Verapaz historically populated by the Maya Achi. To complete construction, the government undertook voluntary and forcible relocations of dam-affected communities from the fertile agricultural valleys to the much harsher surrounding highlands. When hundreds of residents refused to relocate, or returned after finding the conditions of resettlement villages were not what the government had promised, these men, women, and children were kidnapped, raped, and massacred by paramilitary and military officials. More than 440 Maya Achi were killed in the village of Río Negro alone. The string of extrajudicial killings that claimed up to 5,000 lives between 1980 and 1982 became known as the Río Negro massacres. The government officially declared the acts to be counterinsurgency activities – although local church workers, journalists and the survivors of Rio Negro deny that the town ever saw any organized guerrilla activity.

The Pacification of Samar was a counterinsurgency operation initiated by General Adna Chaffee during the Philippine-American War, following the Balangiga massacre. General hostilities had largely ceased following the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the insurgent Philippine Republic, and his publication of a manifesto on April 10, 1901 acknowledging and accepting U.S. sovereignty throughout the Philippines.

General Vicente Lukban had been the commander, under Aguinaldo, of a guerilla force on the island of Samar and had, when offered the opportunity to surrender, replied that he intended to fight on to the end. In September, in an action that became known as the Balangiga massacre, Lukban's forces assisted by townspeople in a surprise uprising inflicted 54 killed and 18 wounded on a U.S. Army company garrisoning that town. Following this, General Jacob H. Smith was tasked with the pacification of Samar.