A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same state .
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.
The term is a calque of Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
Members of the Red Guards during the Finnish Civil War of 1918
The destruction wrought on Granollers after a raid by German aircraft on 31 May 1938 during the Spanish Civil War
Aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, American Civil War, 1863
Tanks in the streets of Addis Ababa after rebels seized the capital during the Ethiopian Civil War (1991)
The Cambodian Civil War was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea against the government forces of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which had succeeded the kingdom.
U.S. tanks entering Snuol in Cambodia in 1970.
Meeting in Beijing: Mao Zedong (left), Prince Sihanouk (center), and Liu Shaoqi (right)
Areas under government control, August 1970
A memorial to the civil war in Siem Reap, Cambodia, with a rusted wreck of a Soviet-built T-54 main battle tank used during the war. Large numbers of T-54s were used by Cambodia during and after the bloody fighting of the conflict between 1970 and 1975, with many such wrecks (in various states of abandonment and disrepair) scattered all over the country today.
