Know the Enemy

This is part two of a three-part series ( read part 1 )briefing paper on the radical left group, Antifa, looking to overthrow President Trump and our Constitution.

USA – In part two of our exposé, we will look at the techniques and tactics used by Antifa. Although these might vary slightly from cell to cell these are the most common Antifa methods. All these tactics and techniques have been used at the protest in 2017.

Direct Confrontation

Antifa encourages their members to use direct violent confrontation of other groups. Antifa considers violent clashes “self-defense” even if the clash is initiated by the Antifa member because they consider things such as free speech as oppressive to their movement. They also consider the existence of their enemies as an assault on Antifa.

This way of thinking is how they can rationalize that they are the ones being attacked instead of being the ones attacking.

Antifa is also seeking martial arts training in MMA, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Krav Maga. There is one gym in Chicago that is run by an Antifa member to teach these things to other Antifa members. More and more of these clubs are popping up on college campuses across the country.

Weapons

Antifa recommends anything that one can find be used as a weapon, but have they specifically mentions the items below as their weapons of choice.

This isn’t a complete list by any means, but this is what they have used in the past year, or Antifa has talked about using the near future. This also includes things mentioned in chatter from their groups that I monitor.

One of Antifa’s go-to weapon is pepper spray or bear spray. This has been widely used especially during the so-called Battle of Berkeley. It should be assumed this will be used at all events where Antifa shows up and will be used in unprovoked attacks to stifle the voices of their enemies. It has gotten so bad that the free speech movement started carrying milk to neutralize the effects of pepper spray.

A lot of the pepper spray attacks are random and quick. Some attacks happen on people that just happen to be walking through where a rally is taking place. What will happen is a group of yellow members will distract the target then a red member will spray the victim in the face with the pepper spray. This is the most common technique seen across the country.

Antifa has started to carry clubs to disrupt rallies. This can be something as simple as a tire thumper purchased off Amazon or as complex as a nightstick. They have also started to carry retractable clubs that police carry. This is another weapon that is coming rapidly into play. Antifa members are now encouraged to purchase such clubs and use them on the opposition.

U shaped bike locks are another makeshift weapon that Antifa uses as an offensive weapon. This is a weapon of choice for Antifa because it isn’t illegal to carry a bike lock and it is very easy to use this as a blunt force object. These were used extensively in Berkeley.

The Antifa Bike bloc members will all be likely to be armed with this weapon. They use the excuse of having a bike if stopped by law enforcement to explain why they have it. This was also the weapon Eric Clanton used on multiple people in Berkeley, CA. Eric Clanton was a college professor who moonlighted as a violent thug for Antifa.

Antifa also uses glass bottles because they are also not illegal to have in their possession. These are usually thrown at law enforcement or into crowds to cause harm. This has been seen in Portland, California, and DC. At any event, Antifa shows up at the throwing of glass bottles should be expected.

Antifa uses M80s and other fireworks to disrupt rallies. These are thrown in crowds to cause panic due to their sound that can be confused with gunfire.

Antifa’s main goal of attending the opposition’s rallies is to disrupt the rally by causing chaos. Antifa sees the suppression of free speech as a good thing as long as it is not their speech.

Along with the M80s, Antifa will use smoke bombs. These smoke bombs are used to cause confusion at the rallies they are trying to disrupt. It is also used to try to cause panic within the crowds much like the use of M80s. Antifa will also use smoke bombs to hide their attacks by throwing the smoke bombs then charging the crowd.

Antifa has used Molotov Cocktails throughout Europe. In the US these have used sparingly in the past, but moving forward Antifa will most likely be deploying these more often on property. Antifa is moving in the direction of becoming a terrorist organization if they are not already terrorists. A lot of people I have interviewed for this article already consider them terrorists.

On some internal Antifa forums, they have talked about using wrenches. These wrenches can be tapped to the Antifa member’s forearm and used as a defensive weapon if attacked. On the internal forum, I have read in researching for this article other members of Antifa also talked about using wrenches blunt force weapons offensively.

One Antifa member arrested for knife attack. pic.twitter.com/bhOqaM4taC — KevinJJohnston (@KevinTheJackal) June 3, 2017

One Antifa website was selling credit card knives. Stabbings by Antifa has been reported in Berkeley, Ottawa, Sacramento, and even Germany. There is no reason to think that this will slow down. In fact, it seems Antifa related stabbings are going up and not going down.

Bricks are the latest weapon in Antifa’s arsenal. Antifa has now set up on rooftops with bricks to throw down on the opposition groups. Recently in Portland police found bags of bricks on rooftops. These were placed on rooftops by Antifa members to rain down on the free speech movement’s march.

So far Antifa has not been proven to use guns, but Antifa is encouraging their members to purchase guns and learn how to use them. The would-be assassin of the congressmen playing baseball was on some of the same Facebook groups that the Antifa members that I have been tracking are using to spew their hate. Although the gunmen have not been proven to be an Antifa member his actions were celebrated Antifa. Also, a truck flying a Trump flag has been shot at though there has been no arrest or suspects in this case at this time.

Remember the end goal of Antifa is the overthrow of the government and replace it with a worldwide communist government. Antifa believe it will eventually come to a shooting war at some point, but right now encourages their members to use something other than firearms.

Even though they encourage their members to use something other than firearms, Antifa is planning several open carry marches to disrupt events. This will be a major escalation in tensions between Antifa and their opposition. This is taking a play out of the John Brown Gun Club’s playbook.

In fact, this idea comes directly from the John Brown’s Gun Club.

Antifa is also looking for left-wing gun trainers and dealers since most trainers and dealers are aligned with “their enemies” on the right. They have reached out to the left-wing group, The John Brown Gun Club for guidance. One of the former state leaders of American Patriots III% is also helping with gun training.

Antifa Tactics

Antifa uses what they call “de-platforming”. This is the prevention of an event or the denial of someone to speak at a venue. This has included rushing stages, pulling fire alarms, airhorns, and blocking roads. Once again Antifa’s motto of “by any means necessary” comes into play here.

Ironically this tactic was used by the fascist brownshirts towards the build-up of World War II. Antifa will use violence to accomplish their goal of de-platforming. There are several methods and techniques they will use to suppress someone’s free speech as well.

Swarming is the first technique that is popular with Antifa. A group of yellow members will surround the target. They will start yelling and getting into the face of the prospective victim. This will distract the target while a red member comes in and commits an act of violence. This could be anything from pepper spraying the victim to assaulting the victim with a bike lock.

The red member will then retreat into a crowd of green members and try to fade away. This is the very reason why all members wear black clothing and wear mask. Antifa believe they are safe within a crowd.

Female Shields : Antifa will use female members as human shields.

They count on men being restrained when facing a woman so they will strike and use women to block the victim or bystanders from chasing the red member as that member retreats into a group of green members. These women will use all means of blocking including grabbing and hitting. These women are mostly considered yellow members even though they will commit assaults to block a pursuer.

If the woman is hit or hurt during this action Antifa will push the narrative that they were assaulted for no reason. This is to try to get sympathy from the mainstream media who does not understand their techniques and further demonize their enemies. This happened in Berkeley, CA during the Battle Of Berkeley.

Doxing :

Antifa’s favorite tactic is doxing. Doxing means releasing personal information. Antifa will release personal and sensitive information about their target to try to intimidate their victim into silence. Not only do they target the person they have a problem with, but they will also target the victim's family.

The victim and their family might receive harassing phone calls, death threats, and most dangerously they might be SWATT’ed. SWATT’ing is when the police receive a call of something like a hostage situation at the victim’s house. The hope is the police show up and break down the victim’s door. Antifa will use Skype or another VOIP application to place the call anonymously.

Another tactic that Antifa red members will use is using a black tee-shirt to create a mask to conceal their identity. After they commit their crime they will pull the tee-shirt on as a shirt so as not to have any evidence of a mask. They believe this will make it easier to blend in with a crowd all wearing black.

The “bike fly by” is another tactic used by Antifa to intimidate the opposition. This is where members of Antifa from the Bike Bloc will distract members of opposition groups by yelling at the opposition group or riding circles around them. Then a member of Bike Bloc will come from behind and “buzz” the opposition groups.

They then will stop around ten yards ahead of the opposition group. The Bike Bloc member will then stare down the opposition group, and pull up their mask. This method will be repeated multiple times. I haven’t found an instance where the Bike Bloc have physically engaged anyone, but these members have in the past damaged and vandalized property. This method was used on a group of Three Percenters during the May Day March in Richmond, VA.

Propaganda Tools

Antifa uses many online tools to communicate anonymously through the internet. Antifa is very paranoid about being spied on and will go to great lengths to prevent this intrusion. Although many groups use different apps to keep their communication private there seems to be certain apps and programs that all of Antifa uses across the country.

Signal is the first phone app used by Antifa. What the Signal app does is allow for secure text and calls through a mobile phone. It does this by using a secure messaging protocol called Whisper that encrypts communications. Antifa believes this will stop eavesdropping on their calls.

Although I hate to give Antifa credit they do push their members to use different passwords for each site they access. This means if their credentials are compromised on one site it can’t be used on another. I would recommend that method for everyone.

Remembering multiple usernames and passwords can be hard so Antifa uses an app to help. This app is called KeePassX. This is the app keeps all their passwords secured in an encrypted database. KeePassX is very secure.

A lot of the planning goes on in what is known as the Deep Web. Going into what the deep web is and how it works would be another article in itself. The short answer is the Deep Web is a second hidden internet at is totally anonymous. Everything from drugs to illegal guns is on the Deep Web.

Antifa feels safe on the Deep Web, but in order to get to the Deep Web you need a special browser called TOR. Antifa uses TOR to securely browse and communicate on the Deep Web.

Pad.riseup.net ( https://pad.riseup.net/ ) is a website that allows open collaboration via a text document. This site does not store IPs and after 30 days the text document is automatically deleted. This is where Antifa plans and organizes their raids. Since the website doesn’t require a login or stores IPs Antifa feels anonymous.

When Antifa feels that they need to have a video conference for meetings with leaders from across the country they will use a website called Jitsi.org. This is a free service and is open source, and to Antifa most importantly it is secure.

Antifa will insist all their members use encrypted emails when sending emails about Antifa activities. To accomplish this they use PGP to encrypt their email conversations. PGP has been around for a long time and again is very secure. The only drawback is trying to use it with webmail.

To get around this problem Antifa will use Mailvelope. This program is like PGP but for webmail. Like PGP this is a very secure encryption for sending and receiving email.

Antifa does not trust Google Drive or Dropbox. They think that Google and Dropbox are pawns of the Fascist government. They use an alternative called OwnCloud for storing files..This way they can have control over their files and prevent the watchful eye of the government from seeing what they are doing.

What I find really interesting is the use of the paid database program called PowerBase ( https://ourpowerbase.net/). Powerbase promotes the Black Lives matter movement on their website home page. Almost without exception Antifa will keep a local roaster and use PowerBase as their database software. I am not sure why they would keep a database of members, but they do exist in direct contradiction to all their warnings to their followers about secrecy. [the old do as I say not as I do]

In part three we will look into the national structure of Antifa. We will look into their leaders, and we will follow the money to some shocking sources.





About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC, and is the co-host of The Patriot-News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on the history of the patriot movement and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss or at www.crumpy.com.