Edit]The Americas

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a Marxist nationalist group that sought to create an independent, socialist Quebec.^[153] Georges Schoeters founded the group in 1963 and was inspired by Che Guevara and Algeria's FLN.^[154] The group was accused of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations of politicians, soldiers, and civilians.^[155] On October 5, 1970, the FLQ kidnapped James Richard Cross, the British Trade Commissioner, and on October 10, the Minister of Labor and Vice-Premier of Quebec, Pierre Laporte. Laporte was killed a week later. After these events support for violence in order to attain Quebec independence declined, and support increased for the Parti Québécois, which took power in Quebec in 1976.^[156]

In Colombia several paramilitary and guerrilla groups formed during the 1960s and afterwards. In 1983, President Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Peru described armed attacks on his nation's anti-narcotics police as "narcoterrorism", i.e., which refers to "violence waged by drug producers to extract political concessions from the government."^[157] Pablo Escobar's ruthless violence in his dealings with the Colombian and Peruvian governments has been probably one of the best known and best documented examples of narcoterrorism.^{[citation needed]} Paramilitary groups associated with narcoterrorism include the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), and the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). While the ELN and FARC were originally leftist revolutionary groups and the AUC was originally a right-wing paramilitary, all have conducted numerous attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and the U.S. and some European governments consider them terrorist organizations.^[158][159]

The Jewish Defense League' (JDL) was founded in 1969 by Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City, with its declared purpose the protection of Jews from harassment and antisemitism.^[160] Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics state that, from 1980 to 1985, 15 attacks the FBI classified as acts of terrorism were attempted in the U.S. by members of the JDL.^[161] The National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism states that, during the JDL's first two decades of activity, it was an "active terrorist organization.".^[160][162] Kahane later founded the far-right Israelipolitical party Kach, which was banned from elections in Israel on the ground of racism.^[163] The JDL's present-day website condemns all forms of terrorism.^[164]

The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN, "Armed Forces of National Liberation") is a nationalist group founded in Puerto Rico in 1974. Over the decade that followed the group used bombings and targeted killings of civilians and police in pursuit of an independent Puerto Rico. The FALN in 1975 took responsibility for four nearly simultaneous bombings in New York City.^[165] The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has classified the FALN as a terrorist organization.^[166]

The Weather Underground (a.k.a. the Weathermen) began as a militant faction of the leftist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organization, and in 1969 took over the organization. Weathermen leaders, inspired by China's Maoists, the Black Panthers, and the 1968 student revolts in France, sought to raise awareness of its revolutionary anti-capitalist and anti-Vietnam Warplatform by destroying symbols of government power. From 1969 to 1974 the Weathermen bombed corporate offices, police stations, and Washington government sites such as the Pentagon. After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, most of the group disbanded.^[167]

[edit]Asia

The Japanese Red Army was founded by Fusako Shigenobu in Japan in 1971 and attempted to overthrow the Japanese government and start a world revolution. Allied with the Palestinian groupPFLP, the group committed assassinations, hijacked a commercial Japanese aircraft, and sabotaged a Shell oil refinery in Singapore. On May 30, 1972, Kōzō Okamoto and other group members launched a machine gun and grenade attack at Israel's Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others. Two of the three attackers then killed themselves with grenades.^[168]

Founded in 1976, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, (also called "LTTE" or Tamil Tigers) was a militant Tamil nationalist political and paramilitary organization based in northern Sri Lanka.^[169]From its founding by Velupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a secessionist resistance campaign that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka.^[170] The conflict originated in measures the majority Sinhalese took that were perceived as attempts to marginalize the Tamil minority.^[171] The resistance campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, one of the longest-running armed conflicts in Asia.^[172] The group carried out many bombings, including an April 21, 1987, car bomb attack at a Colombo bus terminal that killed 110 people.^[173] In 2009 the Sri Lankan military launched a major military offensive against the secessionist movement and claimed that it had effectively destroyed the LTTE.

[edit]Africa

Founded in 1961, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the African National Congress; it waged a guerilla campaign against the South African apartheid regime and was responsible for many bombings.^[174] MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. South Africa subsequently banned the group after classifying it as a terrorist organization. MK's first leader was Nelson Mandela, who was tried and imprisoned for the group's acts.^[175] With the end of apartheid in South Africa, Umkhonto we Sizwe was incorporated into the South African armed forces.

[edit]Late 20th century

In the 1980s and 1990s, Islamic militancy in pursuit of religious and political goals increased,^{[citation needed]} many militants drawing inspiration from Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.^[176] In the 1990s, well-known violent acts that targeted civilians were the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo and the bombing of Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building.

[edit]The Americas

The Contras were a counter-revolutionary militia formed in 1979 to oppose Nicaragua's Sandinista government. The Catholic Institute for International Relations asserted the following about contra operating procedures in 1987: "The record of the contras in the field . . . is one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping."^[177] Americas Watch - subsequently folded into Human Rights Watch - accused the Contras of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians, torturing civilians; executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.^[178] The contras disbanded after the election of Violetta Chamorro in 1990.^[179]

In 1985, Air India Flight 182 flying out of Canada was blown up by a bomb while in Irish airspace, killing 329 people , including 280 Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian birth or descent, and 22 Indians.^[180] The incident was the deadliest act of air terrorism before 9/11, and the first bombing of a 747 Jumbo Jet which would set a pattern for future air terrorism plots. The crash occurred within an hour of the fatal Narita Airport Bombing which also originated from Canada without the passenger for the bag that exploded on the ground. Evidence from the explosions, witnesses and wiretaps of militants pointed to an attempt to actually blow up two airliners simultaneously by members of the Babbar Khalsa Khalistan movement militant group based in Canada to punish India for attacking the Golden Temple.

The April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing was directed at the U.S. government, according to the prosecutor at the murder trial of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of carrying out the crime.^[181] The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City claimed 168 lives and left over 800 injured.^[182] McVeigh, who was convicted of first degree murder andexecuted, said his motivation was revenge for U.S. government actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge.^[183]

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 851