The advantage of street tactics is that the masses in the streets may be used as a weapon against the enemy. Brazilian students employed excellent street tactics against the police, marching against traffic down selected streets, and firing slingshots holding marbles to ward off the mounted police.
Street operations include the construction of barricades, heaving dislodged paving stones at police, throwing bottles, bricks, leaded paperweights, and other projectiles from the roofs of apartment or office buildings down onto the police, and using buildings under construction for flight, for hiding, or for launching surprise attacks.
It is necessary in street operations to respond effectively to enemy tactics. When the police use protective helmets to protect against flying objects, the attackers divide into two groups, one attacking the enemy from the front, the other from the rear. As the first group withdraws, the other attacks, so that neither group will be in the line of fire of the other.
It is equally important for the urban guerrilla to devise tactics to counter the police net. When a group of police break into the masses to arrest a demonstrator, a larger force composed of urban guerrillas should encircle the police, free the prisoner, beat up the police, and take their weapons. We call this tactic forming a net within a net.
The urban guerrilla should neither be surprised nor surrender when caught in a police net formed around a school, factory, or place of mass assembly. The police net requires that the enemy transport his forces by vehicle or special automobile to block off strategic points before encircling a building or specific area. The urban guerrilla, on the other hand, should never enter a building or an area without preplanning a route of flight. Similarly, urban guerrilla fire teams can thwart the police net by establishing ambush points flanking any key point the police might occupy. Mined roads and streets will halt police and army reinforcements. When the mines explode, the vehicles fly into the air. Caught in this trap, the police become their own victims and the casualties. A net may also be broken through preplanned escape routes unknown to the enemy. Rigorous retreat planning is the best tactic to frustrate enemy encirclement.
Lacking a plan for flight or retreat, the urban guerrilla should not conduct his operation, be it a meeting, assembly, or any other form of action. Without avenues of retreat he is most vulnerable to being caught in a police net.
Street operations allow the urban guerrilla to excel in a new tactic: participation in mass demonstrations. There is a value to the urban guerrilla demonstrator who joins the ranks of the protestors or on mass marches, with a specific purpose or aim. One aim can be to hurl stones or other things, another to start fires, to shoot at the police, steal police weapons, kidnap enemy agents or provocateurs, or assassinate the police or military commanders who frequently arrive in special cars, with no official license plates, so that they will not attract attention.
The urban guerrilla demonstrator may plant mines, throw a Molotov cocktail, or be part of a team that ambushes or bombs. He may also be used to direct the masses to a route of flight from police oppression.
The urban guerrilla demonstrator must also initiate the net within the net. He should search all government vehicles or official cars before turning them over or setting them on fire. He must make certain they do not contain weapons or documents.
Snipers play a particularly valuable role in mass demonstrations. Their operations can be coordinated with the actions of urban guerrilla demonstrators. The sniper who hides in a key position can fire a shotgun or machine gun that will wreak havoc among the ranks of the enemy.