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Óglaigh na hÉireann; "dissident" Irish Republican Army (dIRA) The Real IRA is a hard-line splinter group that broke away from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in November 1997 on the background of the Northern Ireland Peace Process. The founding members of the RIRA objected to the cease-fire called by the IRA in 1997, choosing instead to continue the armed struggle. While the Provisional IRA, allied with the Sinn Fein Party, supported--and indeed helped to achieve--the peace settlement, the dissident republican groups declared that they would accept nothing less than the union of Northern Ireland with the British-controlled Irish Republic. The group’s stated objective is the disruption of the peace process, leading to a complete British withdrawal from North Ireland. The IRA dissidents who resigned from the mainstream republican movement eventually regrouped in order to set up a new organization, the “Real” IRA. The group includes a number of the IRA's 12-strong “army executive,” who resigned, along with quartermaster-general McKevitt in protest of the official IRA support for the peace process. The dissidents formed a new “army executive,” which was to elect an army council to run the new organization. It is strongly suspected that the Real IRA is the military wing of the 32 County Sovereignty Committee, lead in part by Bernadette Sands McKevitt, who serves as acting vice president. The Committee, established in December of 1997, strives for the full independence of 26 counties in the Irish Republic and the six counties of Nothern Ireland. Most of the support for the RIRA is thought to be in the Dundalk and Newry area with some support in Dublin. The group is small in number and has suffered heavy setbacks at the hands of the Irish police. The RIRA recruited up to 30 experienced operators from ranks of the PIRA, mainly in the Republic but also in some areas in North Ireland. In addition, it embarked on a clandestine campaign to enroll younger recruits previously uninvolved in paramilitary activity. Estimates of total membership have varied from about 70 to 175. Some analysts think the most likely figure is about 100. The leader of the Real IRA group, Michael (Mickey) McKevitt is the former quartermaster-general of the IRA. McKevitt was responsible for arms shipments into Northern Ireland. In addition one of the IRA's former leading bomb-makers has joined the real IRA group. He is suspected of constructing bombs for both his group and the CIRA, which previously had only limited bomb-making skills. Another ex-IRA engineer, who was involved in constructing mortars, also joined the RIRA and is believed to have made the mortars used in attacks on security bases in the spring of 1998.
The RIRA was responsible for a number of bomb and mortar attacks during 1997 and 1998.
On Saturday August 15 1998 a car bomb packed with 500 lbs. of explosives detonated in the town of Omagh’s popular shopping district. The bombing has been called the single the bloodiest incident in Northern Ireland’s 30-year history of partisan conflict. Twenty-eight people were killed and hundreds injured. The RIRA claimed responsibility for the bombing. Outrage over the attack in both pro-British Protestant and pro-Irish Catholic communities forced the Real IRA to suspend it activities (18 August 1998).
Baader Meinhof Gang The RAF was born out of the student protest movement in the 1960s. It emerged from the Baader-Meinhof Gang, founded by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Its ideological basis was a commitment to violence in the service of the class struggle. It developed an extensive network of underground guerrillas and left-wing sympathizers who claimed to be motivated by disgust with what they saw as the mindless materialism and fascist tendencies of German society. The Red Army Faction eventually became one of Europe's most feared terrorist organizations. Its ideology was an obscure mix of Marxism and Maoism, with a committment to armed struggle as such. The group was organized into hardcore cadres, which carried out terrorist attacks with the aid of a network of supporters who provided logistic and propaganda support. The RAF survived into the mid nineties despite numerous arrests of top leaders over the years. At the height of its notoriety in the 1970s, the Red Army Faction was seen as Europe's most deadly urban terror group. Its small and disciplined cells made it a streamlined and effective organization. It attacked not just Germany's rich and powerful, but also U.S. military installations which current left-wing ideology saw as emblems of American imperialism. The RAF apparently also harbored ambitious plans of achieving deadlier attacks through use of biological weapons. In 1984, a safehouse belonging to the group was reportedly uncovered in Paris, France. Inside the safehouse an improvised laboratory was found containing flasks of deadly botulism toxin. Although they apparently never had more than 20 - 40 hardcore members, the RAF is thought to have had several hundred supporters. The group was self-sustaining, but during the Baader-Meinhof period they received support from Middle Eastern terrorists. East Germany gave logistic support, sanctuary, and training during the 1980s. In 1997 German authorities said that the Red Army Faction was no longer a serious terrorist threat. Most of its leaders were dead or in jail, while many of the group's onetime sympathizers had become disillusioned with its brutal methods. In April, 1998 the RAF announced that it was disbanding. It sent an eight-page typewritten statement to Reuters news agency, which ended with the guerrillas' emblem of five-pointed star, a stylized machine-pistol and the letters RAF. The statement said: "Today we are ending this project. The urban guerrilla group in the form of the RAF is now history." Officials at the federal Criminal Office in Wiesbaden said the document had been certified as genuine in part because a watermark on one page was the same as that in earlier statements from the group. "We are stuck in a dead end," the statement said, acknowledging that the group had made strategic errors, but expressing no contrition or regret toward the more than 30 people who died as its victims. The RAF is believed responsible for killing from 30 to 50 people, including high-ranking German politicians, business executives and U.S. military personnel. Its terrorist actions were intended to paralyze and topple the post-World War II democratic order in West Germany. The group's members carried out several terrorist attacks against US and NATO targets, including bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and robberies. With the decline of world communism, they had trouble recruiting replacements for jailed members. The group's last terrorist operations were against domestic targets, particularly officials involved in German or European unification and German security and justice officials. The last assassination for which it claimed responsibility was the 1991 murder of Detlev Rohwedder, who headed the agency charged with privatizing the state holdings of the former East Germany. The RAF carried out one operation in 1993, destroying a new prison with several hundred kilos of commercial explosives. A police shootout with two members ended in death of GSG-9 officer and group member Wolfgang Grams. This incident temporarily galvanized the group. During the Gulf war, the RAF attacked the US Embassy in Bonn, firing assault rifles at the building. There were no casualties.
Brigate Rosse This is a Marxist-Leninist group whose aim is to separate Italy from the Western Alliance. An ultra-leftist group, the Red Brigades, left its mark on the Italian political scene of the 1970s and '80s. The organization arose out of the student protest movement of the late 1960s. It's ideology advocated violence in the service of class warfare and revolution. Most of the group's attacks targeted symbols of "the establishment" such as unionists, politicians and businessmen. In it's later period it advocated Italy's withdrawal from NATO. From the mid-eighties onward, the Red Brigade entered a period of decline. Internal scisms, ideological crisis, operational failures, and the arrest of many of the group's leaders undermined the organization's cohesion. Increasingly, the Red Brigades grew isolated from its working class base and from public opinion. On the operationl level, the 1981 pentiti legislation, which encouraged defection and enhanced the powers of the security forces, helped to hasten the group's flight underground. As was the case with other extremist organizations, the BR withdrew into its shell, distanced itself from political propaganda, and focused increasingly on its war against the security forces. In April 1984, four imprisoned leaders of the organization published an “open letter” in which they rejected the armed struggle as pointless: “The international conditions that made this struggle possible no longer exist,” they stated. The Red Brigades were formed in 1969 out of the student movements. In 1984 the group split into two separate organizations: the Communist Combatant Party (BR-PCC) and the Union of Combatant Communists (BR-UCC).
The extra-parliamentary far left in Italy embraced two trends: Marxism-Leninism in the narrow sense of the word, and Workers’ Autonomy (Autonomia Operaia - AO). The basic difference between these two trends lay in the different emphases placed on “party” and “class,” on the “organized, aware avant-garde” and the “spontaneity of the masses.” The Marxist-Leninists clung to Lenin’s doctrine that the party clearly came first. The advocates of AO, however, interpreted Marx and Lenin differently. Although they were aware of the importance of the party as an essential stage in the revolutionary process, they stressed the importance of political organization and political awareness among the “maturing” working class, thereby reversing the Leninist relationship between party and class. The BR saw themselves as offshoots of the Autonomia Operaia movement, not so much a party as an “armed avant-garde” working within the proletariat in order to establish a party. The Italian radical left had a number of prestigious ideologues, accepted by the intelligentsia and left-wing student activists. By far the most famous and influential was Professor Antonio Negri of the University of Padua. Despite his arrest and trial by the authorities, his direct and practical implication in terrorist events was never proved. However, his books and articles had an enormous influence on the leaders of the BR and other terrorist organizations. There is some basis to to the argument that Negri gave legitimacy to terrorist violence by depicting shooting, sabotage, strikes, subversive and even criminal behavior as legitimate tools for the “de-structuralization” of the capitalist economy. In spite of its Marxist-Leninist base the BR was imbued with the ideology of the New Left and neo-Marxism. Events, in the final analysis, strengthened its anarchist orientation, so that it almost qualifies as an anarcho-Communist organization. Although not currently active, the group was greatly feared in the 1970's and early '80's. In 1978, in what became a hallmark of Italian political terrorism, the group kidnapped former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. He was held captive for nearly two months, before his body was finally dumped in the heart of Rome. A similar kidnapping in ended in a police rescue operation. General James Dozier, an American who held a position with NATO in Italy was abducted by Red Brigades operatives in 1981. The general was freed in a raid on a Brigades hideout in northern Italy. A severe crackdown on the organization followed, in which most of the group's leaders were arrested. Many turned informer, leading security forces to other members and hastening the group's slide into obscurity. At this time, the Red Brigades are thought to have no more than 50 members, and an unknown number of sympathizers.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Columbia The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept. The largest, best trained, and best equipped guerrilla organization in Colombia. Established in 1966 as military wing of Colombian Communist Party. Goal is to overthrow government and ruling class. Organized along military lines; includes at least one urban front. Has been anti-US since its inception. FARC operates mainly in Colombia, with occasional operations in Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador. They have approximately 6,000 to 7,000 armed combattants and an unknown number of supporters. Activities
Revolutionary Organization 17 November Epanastatiki Organosi 17 Noemvri The Revolutionary Organization 17 November, based in Greece, was one of the most active terrorist groups in Western Europe in the 1980’s. The group's name derives from the November 17, 1973 student uprising in Athens that was violently quelled by the military junta ruling Greece at the time. 17 November is a violent Marxist-Leninist organization. It's ideology is anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-United States/NATO. The group has been critical of the Greek government for not addressing issues such as the situation in Cyprus, the presence of US bases in Greece, and Greek membership in NATO and the European Community. The organizations initial attacks were selected handgun assassinations of senior US officials, including US Embassy employee Richard Welch in 1975, and US Navy Captain George Tsantes in 1983. In 1975 the group began assassinating Greek officials and public figures. Tactically, 17 November demonstrated a limited operational capability prior to 1985. From 1975 to February 21, 1985, and the Momferatos assassination, 17 November carried out six attacks. Five of these were simple assassinations requiring minimal logistical planning. The sixth operation was an attempted assassination of a US serviceman. These attacks resulted in the death of eight people (two of whom were Americans). Seven of the victims were shot with the same .45 caliber weapon. By using the same “signature” weapon, especially in the early operational stages, 17 November ensured that no other group could take credit for it’s operations. Beginning in the 1980s bombings became a regular weapon in the group's arsenal. Among their activities during this period were attacks against US military buses in 1987 and the assassination of US defense attache William Nordeen in 1988. Since 1990 17 November has also targeted European Community facilities and foreign firms investing in Greece, and added improvised rocket attacks to its methods. The organization was responsible for at least five of the 15 terrorist attacks against coalition targets in Greece during the Gulf War, including the assassination of a US Army sergeant in March 1991. They also stepped up attacks against Turkish interests, including the attempted murder of a Turkish Embassy Official in July, and the assassination of a Turkish Embassy press attache in October 1991. Its operations during 1992 were more reckless and less well planned than in the past. In July, for the first time the group killed a bystander in the course of a rocket attack in downtown Athens on the Greek Finance Minister. In late November, authorities arrested one of Greece’s most wanted terrorists--a suspected member of the “Anti-State Struggle” organization, possibly linked to 17 November. The group continued to attack official Greek targets. These attacks included the shooting in December of a Greek parliamentarian and the bombing of tax offices. Greece was the venue for a large number of international terrorist attacks in 1994, the most serious of which was the July 4th assassination of the acting Deputy Chief of Mission of the Turkish Embassy. The Revolutionary Organization 17 November formally claimed responsibility. A number of other attacks against Western interests in April were possibly sparked by events in the Balkans. These including an unsuccessful mortar attack against the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal in Piraeus, for which 17 November also took responsibility. Attacks were also executed against American, Dutch, French, and German commercial and diplomatic targets. Following the November 26, 1986, car bombing of a Greek police bus, which injured 13 police officers (one fatally), 17 November moved into a new operational phase. Whereas the first phase can be referred to as one of low activity, with only a limited number of operations (six attacks from December 23, 1975, to February 21, 1985), the second and current phase is characterized by a higher level of tactical sophistication, as well as an increase in the number and lethality of attacks. From February 21, 1985 to it’s last possitively identified attack in 1990 (the rocket attack against the offices of the European Community on December 16, 1990), 17 November has carried out 40 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of five people and injured 48 others. Statistically, this five-year period had accounted for 87% of all the group’s operations since 1975. Organizationally, the group appears to be similar to other European Marxist-Leninist terrorist groups, such as Germany’s Red Army Faction (RAF) and France’s Direct Action; a small well-disciplined group whose hard-core members probably number no more than 20 people. Operational decisions are most likely made on a collective basis rather than by one person.
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front Devrimci Sol (Revolutionary Left), Dev Sol The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept. Originally formed in 1978 as Devrimci Sol, or Dev Sol, it was a splinter faction of the Turkish People's Liberation Party/Front. Renamed in 1994 after factional infighting, it still espouses a Marxist ideology and is virulently anti-United States and anti-NATO. The group finances its activities chiefly through armed robberies and extortion. Activities
Revolutionary People's Struggle Epanastatikos Laikos Agonas The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept. The ELA is an extreme leftist group that developed out of the opposition to the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Formed in 1971, the ELA is a self-described revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist group, which has declared its opposition to "imperialist domination, exploitation, and oppression." The ELA is strongly anti-United States and seeks the removal of US military forces from Greece. Activities
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