One of its techniques is to simply kill off young people in villages that support the FARC or ELN - eliminating potential future combatants.

This allows potential combatants to assess the other's antlers, body size and fighting prowess.

Technically, the list of potential combatants included the United States.

Dacia sported 250,000 potential combatants, enough to enable an invasion.

Only the deactivated American Iowa-class battleships still exist as potential combatants, and battleships in general are unlikely to re-emerge as a ship class without redefinition.

The young girls formed into a ring now around the potential combatants and he found himself outside it.

Cleremont makes that appointment in a cold dawn, and is distressed to find himself alone against two potential combatants.

Neither of the potential combatants moved.

Every man, armed or unarmed, was a potential combatant and thus fair game.

Now, analysts said, Xstrata appeared to be trying to draw its potential combatants into the open.