foreign fighters
Imported armed volunteers
Foreign fighters are individuals who travel to a country other than their own to join an armed conflict.
The term typically describes combatants motivated by ideology, religion, or ethnic solidarity rather than citizenship or pay: Thousands of foreign fighters joined ISIS in Syria.
The phrase carries connotations of irregular warfare and is often applied to jihadists, though it includes volunteers in any war abroad.
- militantAggressive cause supporter
- mujahideenMuslim guerrilla combatants
- holy warArmed conflict over faith
- mercenarySoldier fighting for pay
- soldierArmed forces member
combatants · jihadist · conflict · battlefield · front lines · combat zone · warzone · non-state actors · extremists · guerrilla · insurgent · radicals · rebels · paramilitary groups · proxy wars · unconventional warfare · armed resistance · hired guns
- insurgentsinsurgent, guerrillas, guerrilla, rebel, partisan
- Mercenariesmercenaries, mercenary, hired guns, hired gun, soldiers of fortune
- Cold WarBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, arms race, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
- radicalizationextremism, indoctrination, radicalism, fundamentalism, fanaticism
foreign fightershome guard
Local civilian defense volunteers
citizen soldiers · local militia · territorial defense · native resistance · patriots
foreign fightersregular army
Nation's permanent military force
standing army · conscripts · draftees · allied forces · UN peacekeepers
foreign, foreigner, foreigners, foreignness, fighter, fighters, fight, fights, fighting