18 companies by 1966 – to organise the "self-defence" of local populations, thus freeing the expeditionary army for offensive operations. Once Spínola was appointed, recruiting selectively from among the existing militias, created Special Militias of local combatants organised in combat groups, structured similarly to the Portuguese army (in companies divided into platoons), and operating fairly autonomously. In 1968, he proposed to create five such Special Militias, but Lisbon had authorised only two by 1970, concerned both about financial constraints and about the "informality of procedures" introduced by Africanization. According to post-war estimates, locally recruited troops in Guinea numbered 1,000 in 1961 (21.1% of all Portuguese troops there), 3,229 (14.9%) in 1967, and 6,425 (20.1%) in 1973. Many thousands more locals were included in Portuguese-aligned militias. In all, there were "at least on paper, upwards of 17,000" African fighters in Guinea; on one estimate, upon the eve of the Portuguese withdrawal in 1974, the total Portuguese force in the territory numbered about 31,000 fighters, of whom 24,800 were black and 6,200 white. Conflict (1963–1974) Initial PAIGC gains: 1963–1967 PAIGC officially launched its armed struggle inside Guinea in early 1963, despite difficult conditions and very limited weapons supplies. PAIGC cadres, stationed south of the Geba River estuary, attacked Portuguese garrisons in Tite and Catió – bases deliberately established in the middle of PAIGC strongholds to serve as bases for surveillance and counter-insurgency. Similar guerrilla attacks were launched throughout the south of Portuguese Guinea, and the conflict spread. Chabal notes that the attacks surprised the Portuguese authorities, who had expected PAIGC to launch cross-border attacks in incursions over the border with Guinea-Conakry, rather than to launch a guerrilla war inside the territory, and who suffered high casualties early on. According to Chabal, PAIGC's strategy was for small groups of guerrillas gradually to gain a foothold in areas where they had popular political support, while seeking "to attack and harass the Portuguese everywhere and at all times, to cut all means of transport and communications and isolate them in the fortified areas where they had to retreat". Its policy, moreover, was never to attempt to take over an area until PAIGC guerrillas had guaranteed the support of the local population there. PAIGC intended always to avoid frontal attack or confrontation with the Portuguese forces, who were better equipped; it envisioned the war ending with PAIGC gradually moving its guerrilla war from the countryside towards