While the government is setting up the Armed Police Force the Maoists are also reorganising their fighting forces. They already had "people's militias" and a regular fighting force going up to the battalion level, in line with their game plan to first capture the villages and then take on the towns and cities. These are regular fighting forces. After the party's second convention, the Maoists realised that they are in for a very long and drawn-out battle with the royal army and have therefore changed their thinking about the fighting forces.


They are setting up new units, called "Urban Guerrillas." These units will be used for all activities that are to take place in urban areas, from propaganda and publicising the "people's war" to fighting the army. Its existing forces are used in rural areas to fight for the establishment of peoples' governments, while the units now being created are to be deployed in urban battles. Sources say there are fundamental differences in the working, organisation and goals between the existing forces and the new "urban guerrillas." The urban units are formed for a political purpose, to systematise the party's organisation in urban areas.

The Maoist core fighters are members of what they call a "people's army", which functions under direct orders from the Central Military Commission (headed by Prachanda).