Emil Aslan, David S. Siroky and Roberto Colombo
Over the past fifty years, about two-thirds of all civil wars have occurred in countries where customary traditions of honor and retaliation regulate social life. Firmly embedded in the fabric of local societies, the customary code of blood revenge—the practice of avenging an insult by retaliating against the initial culprit or his close kinsmen—has survived and, at times, thrived amid the chaos of warfare. Evidence of its enduring presence emerges from the accounts of dozens of irregular conflicts, ranging from the insurgent battlegrounds of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the war-torn countries of Syria and Iraq, from the guerrilla-affected region of Western Boyacá in Colombia to the territories contested by Maoist rebels in central India, from the Sudanese civil war to the ethnic conflict in Kosovo, down to the terrorism-hit territories of southern Philippines and Corsica.
This Irregular Warfare Initiative article was originally posted through our partner organization, the Modern War Institute at West Point. Continue reading the full article here.
Image credit: Kurdishstruggle
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