Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians including recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, raids, petty warfare or hit-and-run tactics in a rebellion, in a violent conflict, in a war or in a civil war to fight against regular military, police or rival insurgent forces.
Spanish guerrilla resistance to the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain at the Battle of Valdepeñas
Soviet partisans on the road in Belarus, 1944 counter-offensive
Siege of the Fortaleza San Luis by the Dominican rebels by Melanio Guzmán
Lakhdari, Drif, Bouhired and Bouali. Female Algerian guerillas of the Algerian War of Independence, c. 1956.
Unconventional warfare (UW) is broadly defined as "military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare" and may use covert forces or actions such as subversion, sabotage, espionage, biowarfare, sanctions, propaganda or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional warfare as well as international conventions.
Soviet Armed Forces members instruct SWAPO insurgents.