ABSTRACT
The kidnapping of ambassadors, the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of company offices are likely to continue to be familiar hazards of life in the 1970s. Such incidents attract headlines, but they are only part of the repertoire of urban guerrilla warfare, and not the most important part. On the face of it, the phrase ‘urban guerrilla’ is a nonsense. From the time of Clausewitz, it has been generally agreed that guerrilla warfare can only be carried on where insurgents can range widely over the countryside and dispose of irregular, difficult terrain as a base-area. Most theorists of guerrilla warfare agree with Fidel Castro that ‘the city is a graveyard of revolutionaries and resources’.1
