The anti-ICE mobilization that unfolded around the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last week mirrored the methods used to overthrow governments and spark bloody revolutions around the globe, according to a Fox News Digital analysis.
Encrypted Signal chats, command-and-control centers, rapid-response propaganda and orchestrated tear-gas clashes with law enforcement have served to mobilize forces and manipulate public opinion in the ongoing conflict. Close analysis of guidelines distributed online by anti-ICE groups and the minute-by-minute events surrounding the Pretti's death reveal tactics and strategy well-known to military and intelligence analysts as the elements of global insurgencies.
"The violence and rebellion that we’re seeing on the streets of Minneapolis is like an insurgency," said Rick de la Torre, a retired CIA senior operations officer and chief of station.
De la Torre, who has tracked insurgency groups globally from Afghanistan to the Philippines for 20 years, told Fox News Digital he believes the effort is being directed and funded from overseas.
"All of the evidence I’ve seen indicates to me that the insurgency is funded by foreign adversaries who want to see violence and Americans fighting each other," said de la Torre, now founder of Tower Strategies, an advisory firm based in Washington, D.C.
Core U.S. government manuals, such as the "CIA Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency" and the U.S. Army’s "Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies," describe how decentralized movements embed within civilian populations, rely on rapid communications, exploit triggering events and sustain momentum through logistics, narrative control and persistent surveillance of their perceived adversaries.
In the case of the anti-ICE network, many of the organizations involved are self-described Marxist-Leninists, with the ANSWER Coalition, the People’s Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and BreakThrough News funded by an American-born tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, living in Shanghai supporting the communist regime that runs the People’s Republic of China.
"What these groups are trying to do is destroy everything that makes America great: our history, our belief systems, our freedoms, our family unit, our self, our religion, everything. In their minds, all that has to be destroyed so that the system they want to bring about can be progressed," said de la Torre. "That means the end of free enterprise and America as we know it."
Across anti-ICE guides circulated in Minnesota, several recurring tactical elements parallel those insurgency tactics with a clear "command and control" of the operation, another feature of insurgencies:
"The usage of hi-tech equipment, communications, the tactics they employ to track individuals, to break things up into zones, to have a chain of command. Someone is in charge of communications, someone is in charge of moving people, someone is in charge of even medical help. This is all textbook violent revolution," de la Torre said.
A new video by the News Movement captured Pretti cursing and spitting at federal agents on Jan. 13, 11 days before his death, as they arrived at a street corner. He kicked out a rear bumper light on the agents' SUV before a federal agent jumped out and tackled him as ICE Watch "rapid responders" blew whistles, took videos and cursed at agents. What appeared to be a gun was visible in the waistband of Pretti, who was carrying a handgun when his fatal encounter with Border Patrol agents occurred.
"This is not Martin Luther King sitting at a café counter," said de La Torre. "They didn’t throw things at cops. They didn’t bite cops or yell or blow whistles. They politely smiled and allowed themselves to get arrested. That’s peaceful protesting. What we’re seeing is violent insurrection. And we’re seeing violent insurrection promoted by many members of the Democratic Party. They know this."
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A timeline of events surrounding Pretti’s killing illustrates how those tactics were implemented in real time and how the incident functions as a window into a broader tactical strategy.
What happened: At 8:45 a.m, ICE Watch "rapid responders" added the first license plate and movement of suspected ICE vehicles and agents in an "MN ICE Plate" database. Reports continued throughout the day, revealing the sustained monitoring of their work.
ICE Watch tactic: The guides formalize patrol roles, including "foot patrol," "dispatch" and "mobile patrol / commuter," which is designed by the car and air