Former special forces and intelligence professionals purport to debunk the theory that Antifa is 'ideological' rather than a cohesive threat
Local and federal law enforcement agencies around the country have had security plans drawn up for weeks in anticipation of any possible civil unrest that may be triggered by the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Major cities – still reeling from a summer of relentless demonstrations and riots – are bolstering securities in their downtown areas as shops board up their windows.
Security experts say that there are a legitimate concern and reason for cities to brace for brutality.
“Our intelligence shows that no matter who wins the election, they [Antifa] are planning a massive ‘Antifa Tet Offensive,’ bent on destroying the global order they are not beholden to any one party,” Robert Lewis told Fox News. “Their sole purpose is to create havoc, fear, and intimidation.”
Lewis is a former U.S. Army Green Beret and founder of First Amendment Praetorian (1AP), a crowdfunded, volunteer force of military, law enforcement, and intel agency community professionals “standing up to protect the First Amendment and those who use it.”
1AP bills itself as a team dedicated to providing "intelligence and security services to protect grassroots events from fear of outside agitators and disruptors" with the purpose of "making patriotic and religious events safe again."
"We specifically focus on grassroots religious or political events. Larger companies can afford to hire their own security and intelligence teams, but we want the smaller and grassroots organizations to be able to keep safe," Lewis said.
Short for "anti-fascist," the left-wing group has come under intense scrutiny by the White House and Justice Department as an acute security threat, with President Trump earlier this year threatening to label the outfit a terrorist organization. However, critics of the administration's focus on the shadowy leftist collective insist that the peril posed has been overplayed dramatically.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has also framed Antifa as an "ideology" rather than a cohesive body, as was depicted by FBI director Christopher Wray.
But, the likes of Lewis and those at the helm of 1AP – comprised of hundreds of volunteers with backgrounds working in law enforcement, government intelligence, military, and special operations – begged to differ.
Lewis said that while they started primarily as a security service, efforts on intel collection have ramped up in recent months, which includes a significant number of their volunteers quietly "embedding" with Antifa-like wings. Their intel efforts, he said, have also brought to life a trove of documents that indicate Antifa is far from a hodge-podge, spur-of-the-moment mobilization.
"We use the traditional intelligence fusion cycle – planning and direction, collection, processing, analysis and production, dissemination, re-evaluation. We are currently in the Collection phase, and we have HUMINT, SIGINT, OSINT, and TECHINT capabilities," he continued. "And like any network, the [Antifa] planning and funding comes from a few main sources and people, and then is splintered, filtered, and laundered out to their many 'affinity groups' to maintain the 'no organization lie.'"
In the report breakdown of one Washington, D.C., event helmed by the volunteer group in October, personnel depicted Antifa as having "organizers, spotters, people to probe our defenses and operatives who changed clothes multiple times at the event to try and evade detection."
"They also attempted to launch PSYOPS and, if you believe it, tried (once again) to insert a false Russian collusion / operative narrative via an 'actor' at the event," 1AP states. "The most interesting part is when they start fake fights with each other to try and draw onlookers into the fray."
Lewis also maintains that Antifa is "much more advanced than people give them credit for in terms of intelligence collection and counterintelligence" and that they are "frequently changing their Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) and logistics."
"For anyone who believes Antifa is just a grassroots idea and their attacks are organic, we have a simple answer: do organic, spur of the moment movements and actions need logistics?" he continued, citing multiple open-source documents that point to "having a comprehensive funding and planning group, a PR group and logistics."
1AP's collection and analysis allege a network of food distributors to sustain "foot soldiers on the ground," along with fundraising efforts for financials, and pre-planned events, "which negates the 'organic, spur of the moment' talking point directly."
"How else did they have pallets of bricks pre-positioned on street corners? How do they have a comprehensive legal network ready to defend and bail out their operatives and foot soldiers at the drop of a hat?" Lewis continued, underscoring that the apparent "leaderless" movement is comprised of different cells nationwide, with "inner circles and outer circles."
"The inner circle only meets with certain leaders of the outer circle, who then pass the directions off to their peripheral groups – these cells in the other circle can be anywhere from five to thousands of people," Lewis claimed. "This exact methodology is what allows them to say they aren't an organized group, as the majority of their numbers are made up by these peripheral groups or cells."
In the 1AP view, Antifa is a "deliberately decentralized organization" in which there is "no overall leader" – and yet a number of cells are issued "similar instructions, or specific, complementary instructions with other sections they were working with. "
"This strongly indicates a model of command where individual cell leaders are given instructions in private or through anonymous media," Lewis contended. "There is zero possibility of such a large 'coincidence.'"
Moreover, Lewis claimed that professional analysts on their team routinely "scour the internet, social media, and dark web," with some "infiltrating their encrypted forums to have an ear out for anything they are saying and planning," highlighting that the level of operational security and tech-savviness of the Antifa-affiliated is especially advanced.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/volunteer...olence-outcome
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