Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT • 231987, the Communist Combatant Cells neutralized in 1985, and theRed Army Faction issuing communiqués in June and August 1992and finally in March 1998 announcing its laying down of arms. TheNovember 17 group was smashed by Greek police in 2002, thoughits splinter group the Revolutionary Popular Struggle claimed creditfor a 12 January 2007 missile attack on the U.S. embassy in Greece.Similarly, small splinter groups claiming to be Red Brigades haveconducted some minor attacks in Italy since 2000.ANGRY BRIGADE. The Angry Brigade was a nonstate British groupof ultra-leftist university students who adopted more anarchisticleftistideas in the wake of the 1968 student uprising in France. Theirgoal of revolutionary anarchism was sought through a series of bankrobberies and some 27 bombings in the period from 1968 to 1971,including two bomb attacks on the home of Robert Carr, British Secretaryof State for Employment. Apparently the group intended thesebombings as acts of armed propaganda but sought to avoid causinghuman casualties. The arrest of the so-called Stoke Newington Eightin August 1971 effectively smashed the core of the group and endedits activities.ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT (ALF). The ALF is a nonstate entrepreneurialterrorist group with the limited aim of protecting “animalrights,” specifically by stopping the use of animals as foodstuffsor experimental subjects and also by freeing captive animals. The ALFemerged as one of the more radical animal rights groups when foundedin 1978 by Ronnie Lee in England. Its membership now includes severalthousand in both Great Britain and the United States.On 17 November 1984 the ALF announced that it had contaminatedMars candy bars manufactured in Southampton, England, withrat poison to protest the manufacturer’s use of monkeys in toothdecay research. Around 3,000 tons of candy bars were recalled anddestroyed, equivalent to a loss of sales of £15 million. The ALFwas believed to be responsible for the arson of a livestock diseaselaboratory under construction at the University of California at Davisthat caused $3.5 million in damages. On 3 April 1989 the ALF freed1,200 experimental rabbits, frogs, and mice from a University of Arizonaresearch lab and then torched the lab as well as the Universityadministration building. On 6 July 1990, British police defused abomb that the ALF had planted in London’s Regent Park.