The Troubles, a period of conflict involving Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organizations, political activist and civil rights groups, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British Army and others in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the Belfast Agreement of 10 April 1998, have have been variously described as terrorism, ethnic conflict,a many-sided conflict, a guerrilla war, a low intensity conflict, and even a civil war