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Further Reading factions. The first, under Mori Tsuneo, decided to
remain in Japan and ally itself with another radical
Chand, Attar. Pakistan Terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir.
Columbia, MO: South Asia Books. 1996. student group, the Keihin Anti-Joint Treaty Struggle.
Ganguly, Sumit. Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan The new organization, called the United Red Army
Tensions Since 1947. New York: Columbia University (URA), went into hiding in the Japanese country-
Press; Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2001. side in the winter of 1972. It then conducted a brutal
Jalalzi, Musá_K_han. Sectarianism and Politico-Religious internal purge: 12 of the group’s few dozen members
Terrorism in Pakistan. Rev. ed. Lahore, Pakistan: were killed by their comrades. As the purge was
Tarteeb, 1993. winding down in mid-February, area police became
Margolis, Eric S. War at the Top of the World: The Struggle aware of the group’s presence and members fled
for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet. New York: Rout- their hideout. Five URA members invaded an inn
ledge, 2000. and took the innkeeper hostage; a weeklong siege
U.S. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism. ensued. Police raided the building on February 28;
Annual. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State.
one officer was killed, the innkeeper was freed, and
the terrorists surrendered. This episode put an end to
JAPANESE RED ARMY Mori’s JRA faction.
The second JRA faction, no more than a few dozen
who were led by Fusako Shigenobu, left Japan in
The Japanese Red Army (JRA) was a 1970s terror- 1971 and went to Lebanon to support the Palestinian
ist group famous for its actions on behalf of Palestinian cause. There they became protégés of the Popular
nationalism, including a 1972 massacre at Israel’s Ben- Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In May
Gurion Airport. 1972, three JRA members attacked Ben-Gurion
The JRA arose from the Japanese student protest Airport (Lod Airport) near Tel Aviv, gunning down
movement of the mid- to late 1960s. Protests were passengers in the terminal and attempting to blow up
directed not only at the Japanese government, which a plane. Twenty-three people were killed and more
students felt was corrupt, but also at the U.S. military than 80 injured.
presence in Japan and against the Vietnam War. As In July 1973, the JRA and Palestinians hijacked a
the decade progressed, rampant factionalism over- Japan Airlines plane flying from Amsterdam, eventu-
took the Japanese student movement, with intergroup ally landing in Libya, where the hostages were released
violence often more deadly and more frequent than and the plane destroyed. In February 1974, JRA and
student clashes with the police. The Japanese student PFLP members blew up a Shell oil rig in Singapore;
movement was also marked by a certain militarism; a second team attacked the Japanese embassy in
students arrived at protests equipped with color-coded Singapore, after which the Japanese government
helmets and staves strikingly similar to the helmets acceded to their demands and both groups of terrorists
and batons of the riot police. The end of the decade were allowed safe passage to Yemen.
saw hundreds of student groups, many of which In September 1974, the JRA attacked the French
espoused radical strains of Marxism. The Red Amy embassy in The Hague, Netherlands. Negotiations
was one such group. stalled at first, but after Carlos the Jackal (Ilich
By 1969, the JRA had come to accept that student Ramírez Sánchez) orchestrated an attack on a Paris
protests were not swaying public opinion in conserv- café on the JRA’s behalf, the French ambassador
ative Japan, nor were they likely to in the immediate and the other hostages were released in exchange
future. Inclined to radical action rather than political for several JRA members who had been arrested in
persuasion, the JRA decided to align with the interna- Europe. Once again the terrorists escaped to the
tional communist movement. In March 1970, six JRA Middle East.
members hijacked a Japan Airlines plane and forced In August 1975, the JRA attacked the U.S. and
it to take them to North Korea, where the hijackers Swedish consulates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, taking
freed the hostages and surrendered themselves to the more than 50 hostages. As in The Hague attack, the
Communist North Korean government. hostages were released in exchange for imprisoned
The successful hijacking had left a void within the JRA members, and the terrorists allowed to fly to
JRA leadership, and the group soon split into two Syria. The last major attack by the JRA was the