It included as well as conscripts coerced into submission during the RAK retreat and new volunteers or recruits either pressed into service during in-country raids or drawn from among refugee groups.

The New York Times reported in June 1987 that "the Khmer Rouge army is believed to be having some success in its recruitment, not only among the refugees in its camps but within the Vietnamese controlled People's Republic of Kampuchea."

There were reports of factions in the NADK, such as one loyal to Khieu Samphan, prime minister of the defunct regime of Democratic Kampuchea, and his deputy Ieng Sary, and another identified with Pol Pot and Ta Mok (the Southwestern Zone commander who conducted extensive purges of party ranks in Cambodia in 1977 to 1978).

NADK units managed to keep the main routes linking Phnom Penh to western Cambodia "in a permanent state of insecurity," according to a senior Vietnamese military observer; traffic to and from the seaport of Kampong Saom was obliged to move in convoys.

Officials in Phnom Penh told a Western correspondent in 1987 that the Khmer Rouge were then operating in small insurgent groups inside Cambodia in a battle for the villages, rather than fighting from the Thai border area, as had been the case prior to the 1984 to 1985 Vietnamese dry-season offensive.

In carrying on its protracted insurgency, the NADK received the bulk of its military equipment and financing from China, which had supported the previous regime of Democratic Kampuchea.

In spite of substantial Chinese material assistance, however, the NADK could not maintain the logistical supply line needed to conduct a sustained military campaign.