Chhattisgarh's most notable counter-insurgency ploy, arming an anti-Maoist tribal militia, known as Salwa Judum or Peace March, was predictably a violent failure: displacing over 50, 000 villagers and acting as a recruiting sergeant for the Maoists.

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On its march across the country, the Taliban had vanquished every militia in its path.

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On March 4th, Mr Kadyrov, who via his kadyrovtsy militia has ruled much of the region since his father Akhmad, then president, was blown up in May 2004, became Chechnya's prime minister.

ECONOMIST: Chechnya gets a new prime minister

In March last year, the Nigerians, helped by the Kamajor militia a secretive society of the Mende people from the south-east succeeded in pushing the rebels back into the jungle.

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The tables began to turn on Mr. Ntaganda in March, when the ICC announced a guilty verdict against his former militia boss, Mr. Lubanga, on the same child-soldier charges that Mr. Ntaganda faced.

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But the students vowed to fight on, promising to march next on Jezzine, a town occupied by Israel's Lebanese proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army a force that is less disciplined and much more trigger-happy than its Israeli masters.

ECONOMIST: Israel��s mess in Lebanon