The Japanese Red Army (JRA) were a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group founded in 1971 that aimed to overthrow the Japanese government and start a world revolution. They performed actions in Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Israel, Netherlands, Libya, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Italy and the USA.
History
Timeline of Major Actions
- March 1970: 9 future JRA members hijack Japan Airlines Flight 451 carrying 129 people at Tokyo International Airport with katanas and a bomb, they forced the crew to fly to Fukuoka and later Gimpo Airport in Seoul, South Korea, where all the passengers were freed. They then flew it to North Korea, abandoning the plane and relasing the crew.The aircraft then flew to North Korea, where the hijackers abandoned it and the crewmembers were released. The JRA members lived in North Korea and many died.
- May 1972: 3 JRA members kill 26 people at Lod Airport, Israel with guns and grenades. 1 committed sucide, 1 was shot by friendly fire from the JRA and the survivor - Kōzō Okamoto - spent the next 12 years in an Israeli jail.
- July 1973: 1 JRA member leading 4 PLFP members hijacked Japan Air Lines Flight 404 over the Netherlands. The plane stopped in the UAE, Syria and finally Libya, where the passengers and crew were released and the hijackers blew up the aircraft.
- January 1974: 2 JRA members and 2 PLFP members armed with submachine guns infiltrated an oil refinery in Singapore and blew it up, later hijacking a ferry and taking the five crewmembers hostage. They exchanged the hostages for safe passage to Kuwait and later South Yemen.
- September 1974: the French Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands was stormed. The ambassador and ten other people were taken hostage and a Dutch
policewoman, Joke Remmerswaal, was shot in the back, puncturing a lung. After lengthy negotiations, the hostages were freed in exchange for the release of a jailed Red Army member (Yatsuka Furuya), $300,000 and the use of an aircraft. The hostage-takers flew first to Aden, South Yemen, where they were not accepted and then to Syria. Syria did not consider hostage-taking for money revolutionary, and forced them to give up their ransom.[22]
- August 1975: the Red Army took more than 50 hostages at the AIA building housing several embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The hostages included the US consul and the Swedish chargé d'affaires. The gunmen won the release of five imprisoned comrades and flew with them to Libya.
- August 11, 1976: in Istanbul, Turkey, four people were killed and twenty wounded by PFLP and Japanese Red Army terrorists in an attack at Istanbul Atatürk airport.[23]
- September 1977: The Red Army hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 472 over India and forced it to land in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Japanese Government freed six imprisoned members of the group and allegedly paid a $6M ransom.
- December 1977: a suspected lone member of the Red Army hijacked Malaysian Airline System Flight 653.[24] The flight was carrying the Cuban ambassador to Tokyo, Mario Garcia. The Boeing 737 crashed killing all on board.
- May 1986: the Red Army fired mortar rounds at the embassies of Japan, Canada and the United States in Jakarta, Indonesia.[25]
- June 1987: a similar attack was launched on the British and United States embassies in Rome, Italy.[11]
- April 1988: Red Army members bombed the US military recreational (USO) club in Naples, Italy, killing five.[11]
- April 1988: 1 JRA member (Yū Kikumura)
- In the same month, JRA operative Yū Kikumura was arrested with explosives on the New Jersey Turnpike highway, apparently to coincide with the USO bombing. He was convicted
of these charges and served time in a United States prison until his release in April 2007. Upon his return to Japan he was immediately arrested on suspicion of using fraudulent travel documents.