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

Scappaticci, who died last year, was the personification of the dirty war secretly fought between Britain's intelligence agencies and the IRA.

From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2024

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

Tobar’s raw material also included the letters and eyewitness accounts of family members, girlfriends, journalists, traveling companions and, from the dirty war in El Salvador, fellow rebels.

From New York Times ● Aug. 25, 2020

Related: Pope's South American tour recalls a divided church – and a dirty war Saldaño is the third of Guerrero’s four children, and her eldest son.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 23, 2015