Leaderless resistance

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Given the simplicity of the strategy, as well as the fact that it is difficult to stamp out, leaderless resistance has been employed by a wide range of movements, from the animal-liberation movement, radical environmentalist movements, as well as government/corporation separatism, anti-abortion activists and resistance to military invasion or colonialism, to terrorist and hate groups.

General characteristics[edit]

A typical covert cell operates as anything from a lone individual to a small group. The basic characteristic of the structure is that there is no explicit communication between cells which are otherwise acting toward the same goals. Members of one cell usually have little or no specific information on who else is agitating on behalf of their cause.




While the concept of leaderless resistance is often based on resistance by violent means, it is not limited to them. The same structure can be used by non-violent groups authoring, printing, and distributing samizdat literature, using the internet to create self-propagating boycotts against political opponents, maintaining an alternative electronic currency outside of the reach of the taxing governments and transaction-logging banks, etc.


The concept of leaderless resistance was reportedly developed by Col. Ulius Louis Amoss, a former U.S. intelligence officer, in the early 1960s. An anti-communist, Amoss saw leaderless resistance as a backup for the possibility of a communist seizure of power in the United States.

The concept was revived and popularized in an essay published by the anti-government Ku Klux Klan member Louis Beam in 1983 and again in 1992. Beam advocated leaderless resistance as a technique for white nationalists to continue the struggle against the U.S. government, despite an overwhelming imbalance in power and resources. In the same year, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) was formed as an eco-resistance movement.

Beam argued that conventional hierarchical pyramidal organizations are extremely dangerous for their participants, when employed in a resistance movement against government, because of the ease of disclosing the chain of command. A more workable approach would be to convince the like-minded individuals to form independent cells, without close communication between each other, but generally operating in the same direction.

In practice[edit]

Animal liberation[edit]

Further information: Animal liberation movement, Abolitionism (animal rights), Veganarchism, and Anarchism and animal rights
An ALF raid removing 82 beagles and 26 rabbits from Interfauna in Cambridge on St Patrick's Night 1990.[3]
A protest march in Huntingdon by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, November 10, 2007.

The first recorded direct action for animal liberation which progressed into a movement of leaderless resistance was by the original Band of Mercy in 1824 to thwart fox hunters.[4] Inspired by this group and after seeing a pregnant deer driven into the village by fox hunters to be killed, John Prestige decided to actively oppose this sport and formed the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) in 1964. Within a year, a leaderless model of hunt-sabotage groups was formed across the country.[4]

The Band of Mercy was then formed in 1972 using direct action to liberate animals and cause economic sabotage against those thought to be abusing animals. Ronnie Lee and others then changed the name to the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in 1976 and the leaderless resistance model focusing broadly on animal liberation was born.[5]

Earth First! and the environmental movement in the 1980s adopted the leaderless resistance model,[6] whilst those in the animal liberation movement advocating violence emerged with activists using the name Animal Rights Militia (ARM) in 1982. Letter bombs were sent to the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, with two years later the name Hunt Retribution Squad (HRS) also being used.[7][8]

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) was then formed in 1992, which broke from Earth First! when the organization decided to focus on advocating public direct action, instead of ecotage that the ELF participated in,[9] whilst a violent group was established called the Justice Department in 1993, who in 1994, sent razor blades to hunters such as Prince Charles and animal researchers.[10][11]

In 1999 the strategy was then actively employed by animal liberation organisations Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), formed from the Consort beagles campaign and Save the Hill Grove Cats to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). Despite claiming successes [12] leaderless animal liberation and environmental movements generally lack the broad popular support that often occurs in strictly political or military conflicts. The Revolutionary Cells--Animal Liberation Brigade (RCALB) then appeared in 2003 and sent pipe bombs to Chiron Corporation as well as using incendiary devices against similar campaign targets, whilst a year later on the south coast of Dorset in 2004, the Lobster Liberation Front (LLF) was founded.[13]

Within a few years of the victories claimed by the SHAC, other campaigns against animal testing laboratories emerged. At the same time, SPEAK Campaigns and the more radical ALF militants, Oxford Arson Squad began their campaigns for the same goal; to end Oxford University's animal research.

In April 2009, the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH) became active, when along with the ALF, they began targeting HLS customer and financial Directors, as well as company property. Since then, groups have reported over a dozen actions in Europe, including painting homes, burning cars and grave desecration. Militants, however oppose ALF ideology, instead believing in any necessary action to prevent suffering at HLS' laboratories.[14]

Broadly-focused movements, campaigns and organizations[edit]

Movements/campaigns focused on animal testing[edit]

Ongoing movements/campaigns
Historical campaigns

Movements/campaigns focused on hunting[edit]

Movements/campaigns that advocate violence[edit]


Leaderless resistance is also often well-suited to terrorist objectives. The Islamist organization Al-Qaeda provides a prototypical figurehead/leaderless cell structure. The organization itself may be pyramidal, but sympathizers who act on its pronouncements often do so spontaneously and independently.

Given the small, clandestine character of terrorist cells, it is easy to assume they necessarily constitute leaderless resistance models. Where a bidirectional affiliation occurs, however, the label is inappropriate. The men who executed the bombings of the London Underground on July 7, 2005 constituted a leaderless resistance cell in that they purportedly acted out of sympathy for Islamic fundamentalism but under their own auspices. The hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks, by contrast, allegedly received training, direction, and funding from Al-Qaeda, and are not properly designated a leaderless cell.


The concept of leaderless resistance remains important to much far right thinking in the United States,[15] both in response to Amoss' initial fear (foreign forces on U.S. soil) but increasingly also — in line with Beam — as a response to perceived federal government over-reach at the expense of individual rights. The actions of Timothy McVeigh are perhaps the most extreme example in the United States. McVeigh acted largely alone, but based on motivations widespread amongst the far-right anti-government and militia movement.

Leaderless resistance is not only used toward anti-government ends on the far right. Xenophobic organizations such as White Aryan Resistance and the British neo-Nazi Combat 18 have adopted and advocate the tactic. The modern Ku Klux Klan is also credited with having developed a leaderless resistance model.[16] Troy Southgate also advocated forms of leaderless resistance during his time as a leading activist in the National Revolutionary Faction and a pioneer of National-Anarchism.

Stormfront, Aryan Nations, and Hammerskin Nation link to Beam's Leaderless Resistance. These extremist groups promote a lone wolf mentality. While nominally decrying violence, the sites praise the man who "practices what he preaches, and who backs up his words with his deeds."[17] Stormfront, while regretting the loss of life, explains how Benjamin Nathaniel Smith's 1998 killing spree was compelled by circumstances. The World Church of the Creator presents a mixed message, calling Smith "a selfless man who gave his life in the resistance to Jewish/mud tyranny," but noting "the Church does not condone his acts."[17]

Radical environmentalism[edit]

Further information: Ecotage, Eco-terrorism, and Earth liberation

The first identified leaderless resistance in the environmental movement was when explosive and incendiary devices were used in 1976, by John Hanna and others as the Environmental Life Force (ELF), also now known as the original ELF. The group conducted a campaign of armed actions in northern California and Oregon, later disbanding in 1978 following Hanna's arrest for placing incendiary devices on seven crop-dusters at the Salinas, California airport on May Day, 1977.[18] It wasn't until over a decade and a half later that this form of guerrilla warfare resurfaced using the same acronym.


In 1980 Earth First! was then founded by Dave Foreman and others to confront environmental destruction, primarily of the American West. Inspired by the Edward Abbey novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang", Earth First! made use of such techniques as treesitting[19] and treespiking[20] to stop logging companies, as well as other activities targeted towards mining, road construction,[21] suburban development and energy companies.

The organization were committed to nonviolent ecotage techniques from the group's inception, with those that split from the movement in the 1990s including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in 1992, naming themselves after the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) who formed in the 1970s.[22] Three years later in Canada, inspired by the ELF in Europe the first Earth Liberation direct action occurred, but this time as the Earth Liberation Army (ELA), a similar movement who use ecotage and monkeywrenching as a tool, although no guidelines had been published. The ELF gained national attention for a series of actions which earned them the label of eco-terrorists,[23][24] including the burning of a ski resort in Vail, Colorado in 1998, and the burning of an SUV dealership in Oregon in 1999. In the same year the ELA had made headlines by setting fire to the Vail Resorts in Washington, D.C., causing $12 million in damages.[25] The defendants in the case were later charged in the FBI's "Operation Backfire", along with other arsons and cases, which were later named by environmentalists as the Green Scare; alluding to the Red Scare, periods of fear over communist infiltration of U.S.[26][27]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks several laws were passed increasing the penalty for ecoterrorism, and hearings were held in Congress discussing the activity of groups such as the ELF. To date no one has been killed as a result of an ELF or ALF action since both groups forbid harming human or non-human life.[28] It was then announced in 2003 that "eco-terrorist" attacks, known as "ecotage", had increased from the ELF, ELA and the "Environmental Rangers", another name used be activists when engaging in similar activity.[29] In 2005 the FBI announced that the ELF, is America's greatest domestic terrorist threat, responsible for over 1,200 "criminal incidents" amounting to tens of millions of dollars in damage to property,[30] with the United States Department of Homeland Security confirming this regarding the ALF and ELF.[31]



Anti-abortion militancy[edit]

Anti-abortion militants The Army of God uses leaderless resistance as its organizing principle. As of 2009, The Army of God's webpage hosts a reprint of an article entitled "Leaderless Resistance" from a publication called The Seditionist.[34][35][36]


Network analysis in classical setting[edit]

The social networks based on leaderless resistance are potentially vulnerable to social network analysis and its derivative link analysis. Link analysis of social networks is the fundamental reason for the ongoing legislative push in the U.S. and the European Union for mandatory retention of telecommunication traffic data and limiting access to anonymous prepaid cellphones, as the stored data contain important network analysis clues.

See also: MAINWAY

Network analysis was successfully used by French Colonel Yves Godard to break the Algerian resistance between 1955 and 1957 and force them to cease the bombing campaigns. The Algerian conflict maybe better described as guerrilla in nature rather than leaderless resistance (see Modern Warfare by Col. Roger Trinquier). The mapping data was obtained by the use of informants and torture and were used to obtain the identities of important individuals in the resistance; these were then assassinated, disrupting the Algerian resistance networks. The more distinctive the individual is in the adversary's network, the more difficult it is to replace them and the greater the damage. France declared Algeria independent on July 3, 1962.

Advantages for leaderless resistance[edit]

Traditional organizations leave behind much evidence of their activities, such as money trails, and training and recruitment material. Leaderless resistances, as they are as much ideologies as organizations, generally lack such traces. The effects of their operations, globally reported by the mass media, act as a sort of messaging and recruitment advertising.

The internet provides investigators with further challenges. The individual cells (and even a single person can be a cell) can communicate over the internet, anonymously or semi-anonymously publishing and sharing information online, to be found by others through well-known websites. Even where legally and technically possible to ascertain who accessed what, it is often practically impossible to discern in reasonable timeframe who is a real threat and who is just curious, a journalist, or a web crawler.

Despite these advantages, leaderless resistance is often unstable. If the actions are not frequent enough or not successful, the stream of public messages, serving as the recruiting, motivation and coordination drives for other cells, diminishes. If the actions are too successful, the result will be formation of support groups and other social structures—structures vulnerable to network analysis.

In fiction[edit]

  • The 1970 novel A Piece of Resistance, re-published in the US in 2004 under the title Never Surrender by Clive Egleton depicts resistance to a Soviet occupation of England.
  • The 1996 novel Unintended Consequences by John Ross portrays a successful rebellion by the American heartland after decades of bullying by faraway Washington.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Simson Garfinkel. "Leaderless resistance today". Retrieved May 7, 2006. 
  2. ^ British Resistance Organisation. "History". Retrieved May 7, 2006. 
  3. ^ "The man, the activist", first published in Arkangel.
  4. ^ a b Best & Nocella (eds), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, Lantern Books, 2004.
  5. ^ Webb, Robin. "Animal Liberation — By 'Whatever Means Necessary'," in Best & Nocella (eds), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, Lantern Books, 2004, p. 77.
  6. ^ Southern Poverty Law Center. "From Push to Shove". Retrieved May 7, 2006. 
  7. ^ Singer, Peter. The Animal Liberation Movement: Its philosophy, its achievements and its future. Retrieved on 2007-11-09.
  8. ^ "Focus: Desecrated", Times Online.
  9. ^ Alleyne, Richard. "Terror tactics that brought a company to its knees", The Daily Telegraph, January 19, 2001
  10. ^ "Animal rights, terror tactics", BBC News, 30 August 2000.
  12. ^ Quantum Analytics: Drop HLS, SHAC.
  13. ^ "Activists' 'war' to save lobsters", BBC News, July 30, 2004.
  14. ^ MFAH Communique: April 7th 2009, Bite Back Magazine, 7th April 2009
  15. ^ Paul de Armond. "Putting the Far Right into Perspective". Retrieved May 7, 2006. 
  16. ^ University of Michigan. "Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism" (PDF). Retrieved May 7, 2006. 
  17. ^ a b Ray, Beverly; George E. Marsh II (February 2001). "Recruitment by Extremist Groups on the Internet". First Monday 6 (2). Retrieved January 18, 2009. 
  18. ^ Original ELF
  19. ^ Earth First's first treesitting civil disobedience action, Earth First! 1985, Oregon, June 1985.
  20. ^ Tree Spiking Memo, Earth First!, April 1990.
  22. ^ ELF Burns Down Vail, FIRE, December 1999.
  24. ^ ELF News, Earth Liberation Front
  25. ^ waste & abuse - controversy over a temporary dirt road built by Vail Resortsand its effect on wetlands, BNet, September 27th 1999.
  26. ^ Eco-Terror Indictments: "Operation Backfire" Nets 11, FBI, January 20th 2006.
  27. ^ Resentencing date set for Jeff Luers, Freedom4um, 29 December 2007.
  28. ^ Bron Taylor, 1998. Religion, Violence and Radical Environmentalism: From Earth First! to the Unabomber to the Earth Liberation Front, Terrorism and Political Violence 10(4):1-42
  29. ^ The eco-terrorist anthrax connection, ESR, October 21st 2001.
  30. ^ Best, Steven and Best & Nocella. Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth, Lantern Books, 2006, p. 47.
  31. ^ FBI, ATF address domestic terrorism, CNN, May 19th 2005.
  32. ^ Brown, Jonathan (2006-09-01). "The Battle of Drax: 38 held as protest fails to close plant". The Independent (London). Retrieved April 4, 2010. 
  33. ^ Wainwright, Martin (2006-09-01). "In the shadow of Drax, not so much a fight as a festival". The Guardian (London). Retrieved April 4, 2010. 
  34. ^ Louis Beam (1962-04-17). "Leaderless Resistance". Armyofgod.com. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  35. ^ "A Most Dangerous Profile: The Loner". The Washington Post. August 18, 1998. Retrieved April 4, 2010. 
  36. ^ Jennifer Gonnerman (1998-11-10). "The Terrorist Campaign Against Abortion - Page 3 - News - New York". Village Voice. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 

External links[edit]