On an Africa trip last month, Clinton met with women and girls raped and otherwise abused by soldiers and irregular forces in the conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,the DRC.
VOA: standard.2009.09.25
But against dispersed irregularforces, they may well be more dangerous to those firing them.
When it came to balancing this priority against the interests of active participants in conflict, especially irregularforces who for tactical reasons choose to go "underground" and not distinguish themselves from civilians, the Geneva Conventions clearly favored the non-combatant.