The **Japanese Red Army** were a militant [Marxist-Leninist and
Anti-Imperialist group](Marxist-Leninist_Groups "wikilink") founded in
1971 that aimed to overthrow the Japanese government and start a world
revolution.

## Actions

  - March 31, 1970: nine members of the JRA's predecessor, the *Red Army
    Faction* (whose leaders had been a part of the *Communist League*
    before they were thrown out), conducted Japan's most infamous
    hijacking, that of Japan Airlines Flight 351, a domestic Japan
    Airlines Boeing 727 carrying 129 people at Tokyo International
    Airport. Wielding katanas and a bomb, they forced the crew to fly
    the airliner to Fukuoka and later Gimpo Airport in Seoul, where all
    the passengers were freed. The aircraft then flew to North Korea,

where the hijackers abandoned it and the crewmembers were released.
Tanaka was the only one to be convicted. Three of Tanaka's alleged
accomplices later died in North Korea and five remain there. According
to Japan's National Police Agency, another accomplice may also have died
in North Korea.<sup>\[19\]</sup>

  - May 30, 1972: the Lod Airport massacre; a gun- and grenade attack at
    Israel's Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, now Ben Gurion International
    Airport, killed 26 people; about 80 others were
    wounded.<sup>\[20\]</sup>

`One of the three attackers then committed suicide with a grenade, `

another was shot in the crossfire. The only surviving attacker was Kōzō
Okamoto. Many of the victims were Christian pilgrims.<sup>\[21\]</sup>

  - July 1973: Red Army members led the hijacking of Japan Air Lines
    Flight 404 over the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were
    released in Libya, where the hijackers blew up the aircraft.
  - January 1974: the Laju incident; the JRA attacked a Shell facility
    in Singapore and took five hostages; simultaneously, the PFLP seized
    the Japanese embassy in Kuwait. The hostages were exchanged for a
    ransom and safe passage to South Yemen.
  - September 13, 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.<sup>\[22\]</sup>

  - 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.<sup>\[23\]</sup>

  - 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.<sup>\[24\]</sup> 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.<sup>\[25\]</sup>
  - June 1987: a similar attack was launched on the British and United
    States embassies in Rome, Italy.<sup>\[11\]</sup>
  - April 1988: Red Army members bombed the US military recreational
    (USO) club in Naples, Italy, killing five.<sup>\[11\]</sup>
  - 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.