An urban guerrilla is someone who fights a government using unconventional warfare or domestic terrorism in an urban environment.
Theory and history
The urban guerrilla phenomenon is essentially one of industrialised society, resting both on the presence of large urban agglomerations where hideouts are easy to find and on a theory of alienation proper to the modern society of mass consumption.
Michael Collins, a commander of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is often considered to be the father of modern urban guerrilla warfare. In April 1919 an elite assassination unit, known as The Squad or Twelve Apostles was created in Dublin. The unit was tasked with hunting down and executing British Intelligence operatives in the city, they can be considered one of the first true urban guerrilla units.
Historically guerrilla warfare was a rural phenomenon, it was not until the 1960s that the limitations of this form were clearly demonstrated. The technique was almost entirely ineffective when used outside of the later colonial environment, as was shown by the Cuban sponsored efforts in Latin America during the 1960s culminating in the foco campaign headed by Che Guevara in Bolivia that culminated in his death. The need for the target government to be simultaneously incompetent, iniquitous, and politically isolated was rarely met.
The failure of rural insurgency forced the discontented to find new avenues for action, essentially random terrorism aimed at creating maximum publicity, provoking the targeted regimes into excessive repression and so inciting the general population to join a wider revolutionary struggle. This movement found its mentor in the leader of the ephemeral Ação Libertadora Nacional, Carlos Marighela. Before his death in 1969 he wrote the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla which, between the polemics, gave clear advice on strategy and was quickly adopted by others around the world.
Montoneros
Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP)
Tacuara Nationalist Movement
Dhaka Guerrillas called Crack Platoon during the 1971 Pakistan-Bangladesh War
Cellules Communistes Combattantes (CCC)
Front Revolutionaire d' Action Prolétarienne (FRAP)
National Liberation Action (ALN)
Popular Liberation Movement (Molipo)
Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8)
Armed Revolutionary Vanguard Palmares (VAR-Palmares)
Popular Revolutionary Vanguard (VPR)
FLQ (Quebec)
Direct Action (organization)
Wimmin's Fire Brigade
Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR)
Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR)
19th of April Movement (M-19)
26th of July Movement
FMLN
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party
Action Directe
FLNC
Leftists:
Movement 2 June
Red Army Faction (RAF)
Revolutionary Cells (RZ)
Fascists:
Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (NSU)
Scottish National Liberation Army
MAC
An Gof
Free Wales Army
Cornish National Liberation Army
Revolutionary Organization 17 November
Revolutionary Struggle
Revolutionary Nuclei
Sect of Revolutionaries
Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei
Naxalite movement.
Iceland
Kópamaros
X18 (guerilla movement)
Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG) (formed 1970)
People's Mujahedin of Iran (formed 1970)
Insurgent forces
Ireland
Provisional Irish Republican Army (formed 1969)
Official Irish Republican Army (formed 1969)
Irish National Liberation Army (formed 1974)
Irish People's Liberation Organisation (formed 1986)
Continuity Irish Republican Army (active since 1994)
Real Irish Republican Army (active since 1997)
Óglaigh na hÉireann (splinter group)
Leftists:
Red Brigades (BR)
Gruppi d'Azione Partigiana (GAP)
XVIII March Brigade (XVIII March)
XII October Group (XII October)
Red Patrol
Armed Proletarian Cells
Prima Linea
Fascists:
Armed Revolutionary Cells
Sudtirol Liberatio Committee
Black Order
Third Position
Revolutionary Action Fascists
Leftists:
Japan Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee (Middle Core Faction)
Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction)
Fourth International Japan
Red Army Faction
Japanese Red Army (detached from Red Army Faction and Kyoto Partisan in 1971)
United Red Army (Remnants of Red Army Faction and the Maoist Revolutionary Left Wing of the Japanese Communist Party merged in 1971)
East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front
Fascists:
Tatenokai
Malayan Communist Party (PKM)
Hezbollah
Hamas
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
PLO
FSLN
Contras
Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB)
Red Scorpion Group
Light A Fire Movement (LAFM)
Sandigan Army
Poland
Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party
Rewolucyjni Mściciele
ETA
ETA-pm
Terra Lliure
MPAIAC, Canary Islands Independence Movement
GRAPO
Resistência Galega
Iraultza
Comandos Autónomos Anticapitalistas
FRAP
Arxiu
Exèrcit Popular Català
Escamots Autònoms d´Alliberament
Hermanos Quero
Front d'Alliberament de Catalunya
Organització de la Lluita Armada
Exército Guerrilheiro do Povo Galego Ceive
Liga Armada Galega
Loita Armada Revolucionaria
Fuerzas Armadas Guanches
Andecha Obrera
Hizbul Islam
Al-Shabaab
Raskamboni Movement
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front
Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (Turkey)
Devrimci Yol
Turkish Revolutionary Youth Federation
Devrimci Karargâh
Group of Communities in Kurdistan
Tupamaros
Black Liberation Army
Earth Liberation Front
Green Mountain Anarchist Collective
May 19th Communist Movement
Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)
Weathermen
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional
Bandera Roja
However, not all urban political violence can be labeled as urban guerrilla. The Black Panther Party might not qualify, due to its public nature, although its policy of "self-defense" was interchangeable with a policy of armed struggle in militarily occupied African American communities. Similarly the Italian Autonomia movement, and the German Autonomen engaged in urban political violence, but not as urban guerrillas due to their policies of public, mass and non-deadly violence.
In the 1970s BBC comedy "Citizen Smith" Wolfie Smith, the leader of the fictional "Tooting Popular Front" described himself as an Urban Guerrilla.
