dirty war

American  

noun

dirty wars plural

1. a war conducted by the military or secret police of a regime against revolutionary and terrorist insurgents and marked by the regime's use of kidnapping, torture, and murder, with members of the civilian population often the victims.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dirty wars
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dirty war

For Moreno Ocampo, the politics of the dirty war were personal and familial.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2023

Others said they were justified by the scale of the online dirty war.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2022

Historians call this period of disappearances the dirty war.

From New York Times ● Nov. 20, 2017

Related: Honduras and the dirty war fuelled by the west's drive for clean energy It was not the first time Cruz had seen the lists.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 21, 2016

He told the BBC: "I think it's very ironic that we've had talk of a dirty war, and we've had talks of dirty deals, and we've talks of dirty peace."

From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2014