mujahideen

plural noun

mu·ja·hid·een mü-ˌjä-hi-ˈdēn

mu̇-,

-ˌja-

variants or mujahedin or less commonly mujahedeen

: Islamic guerrilla fighters especially in the Middle East

Examples of mujahideen in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Pakistan has faced terror attacks from one group or another since the late 1990s, when local veterans of the U.S.-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union during the 1980s turned their attention to other issues and causes closer to home. —

Time, 1 Aug. 2023 The grueling, decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s became the miserable coda for the entire project of the U.S.S.R. — a quagmire, deepened by the supply of U.S. aid and weaponry to the Afghan mujahideen, that preceded the end of the Cold War. —

Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2021 Competing mujahideen factions were now trying to carve up the country for themselves. —

Anand Gopal, The New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2021 Half of them were us and half were real mujahideen. —

Scott Springer, The Enquirer, 22 May 2021 During his nomadic years after prison, Zawahiri traveled frequently to South Asia and increasingly found common cause with the mujahideen and with bin Laden himself, who came to rely on the Egyptian as his personal physician. —

Joby Warrick, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2022 Zawahiri’s steadiness in rendering aid in the face of Soviet bombardment in Afghanistan cemented the doctor’s reputation among the mujahideen, as well as a lifelong friendship with bin Laden. —

Joby Warrick, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2022 The official drew a comparison to U.S. support for the anti-Soviet mujahideen fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s. —

Washington Post, 18 Mar. 2022 This was a key tactic in allowing the Afghanistan mujahideen to defeat the Soviet Union in the 1980s. —

James Stavridis, Time, 11 Apr. 2022 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mujahideen.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.