Haganah as armed forces

In a travel section piece on Israel over the weekend, the NYT refers to the Haganah as "the pre-independence armed forces." Armed forces? No, they weren't the army of a government. They were a paramilitary organization. A militia, a guerrilla force, operating primarily in the British Mandate of Palestine. Armed forces refers to the "combined military, naval, and air forces of a nation" (M-W). I've written in for a correction.