  We report a remarkable universality in the patterns of violence arising in
three high-profile ongoing wars, and in global terrorism. Our results suggest
that these quite different conflict arenas currently feature a common type of
enemy, i.e. the various insurgent forces are beginning to operate in a similar
way regardless of their underlying ideologies, motivations and the terrain in
which they operate. We provide a microscopic theory to explain our main
observations. This theory treats the insurgent force as a generic,
self-organizing system which is dynamically evolving through the continual
coalescence and fragmentation of its constituent groups.
