The cities faced the problem that their armies were militias, recruited from the rural population of their subject territories, but that precisely this rural population had turned against them.

As with many yeomanry regiments of the time, it was a relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among shopkeepers and tradesmen.

Shia formed student associations and a Shia party, Sunni began to form sectarian militias recruited from Deobandi and Ahl al-Hadith madrasahs.

These units consisted of seven Legions of militia recruited initially from Italian colonists, but later included local Africans.

Black Loyalists also served in guerrilla units such as the elite Black Brigade, as well as together with British troops and white Loyalist militia recruited in the colonies.

The guerrilla group had its origins in a loose militia recruited by Portuguese industrialists to protect their interests during the war of independence.

As the recent killings have revealed, Demarest has assembled a private militia, recruited dozens of his former colleagues to use as his personal enforcers and protectors.

Most of Lin Hu's officers were former bandits and militia recruited earlier by Lin from the Zhuang areas of Guangdong.

He later massacred his own shock troops, the Ikhwan (an irregular militia recruited from the main nomadic tribes), when they became a liability in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

The core of the military itself is widely seen as little more than an ethnic militia recruited from President Deby's Zakhawa clan.