The term insurgency group describes a group of armed individuals who attempt to overthrow the government of a country or region. These groups often have a wide range of political, religious, and economic interests. They may also have an international component that connects them to other insurgents and jihadist movements across the globe.
Integrated Groups
A well-institutionalized central command provides the insurgency with the most military leverage and ability to keep fighting, even in the face of setbacks. Examples of integrated groups include the Tamil Tigers, the Afghan Taliban and Hamas. However, these groups do not have the broad popular support that revolutions and civil wars have and will thus be prone to collapse when their leaders are decapitated or when disloyal local units revolt.
Vanguard Groups
Unlike integrated groups, vanguard insurgents have weak centralized control and a lack of ties to local communities. They are the most volatile and susceptible to internal revolts and defections from below, as demonstrated by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s decline in power from 1995 to 1996 when the Taliban pulled away his local units.
Parochial Groups
These insurgents rely on local ties to mobilize a social base and conduct operations, but they lack the logistical and financial resources of the more advanced integrated and vanguard groups. Moreover, parochial insurgents typically have factional structures that build veto players into their organization, and thus are resistant to becoming subordinate to other factional elites they do not know or trust (such as the Moro National Liberation Front in the 1990s). In some cases, these vetoes can be overcome by forceful counterinsurgency that drives out embedded local units.
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