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Fighters search area, beat gutless traitors (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

combatants

'fighters' is the definition.
('combatant' can be a synonym of 'fighter')

'search area beat gutless traitors' is the wordplay.
'search' becomes 'comb' (combing is a kind of searching).
'area' becomes 'a' (maths abbreviation).
'beat' becomes 'tan' (I've seen this before**).
'gutless' means to remove the middle letters.
'traitors' with its centre taken out is 'ts'.
'comb'+'a'+'tan'+'ts'='COMBATANTS'

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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