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A paramilitary organization is a group of civilians trained and organized in a military fashion. The term comes from Greek para ("beside"), like paramedic. Paramilitary means auxiliary military, that is, something not quite military performing military duties. There are political connotations to "paramilitary" which often override the original meaning. Those political connotations, however, are localized and contradictory. There are paramilitary units that are an official legislated arm of the government, paramilitary units that are non-official and illegal yet sponsored by government, anti-government armed units that claim military status, civilian paramilitary units that are neither, and other groups that are something in between.