"combatant status" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it to refer to a person's classification as a member of a nation's armed forces during a conflict. For example, "He volunteered for combatant status and served in the war for three years."
In response to Rasul, the Department of Defense created a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, an administrative proceeding to justify each detainee's "enemy combatant" status.
You can read about much of it in the transcript of his combatant status review.
"The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status.
Fourth, questions of combatant status should be the subject of judicial review and moral scrutiny.
The rest would receive only an abbreviated hearing known as a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (C.S.R.T).
In such a circumstance, the law suggests that the onus is on the target to immediately revoke his combatant status.
However, Ms O'Connor and the other four ruled that Mr Hamdi should at least have some forum in which to contest his enemy-combatant status.
Republicans and Democrats are divided on this question: 63% of Republicans want Mr Shahzad to receive enemy-combatant status, while 51% of Democrats think he should be given the rights of a citizen.
The removal of the enemy-combatant status may make plea-bargains harder; and several provisions of the Patriot Act are due to expire at the end of this year.
Above all, the Bush version of enemy-combatant status was meant to exempt Washington's captives from any of the protections that would normally have been granted to prisoners of war.
British officer and poet Robert Graves recalled in his autobiography Good-Bye to All That that during this battle Gleeson found himself the only unwounded officer of the battalion and, having removed his chaplain's insignia that indicated his non-combatant status, took command of the unit and held until relieved.
