Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

JAPANESE RED ARMY • 331legitimated in Japanese culture by the martial Bushido tradition emphasizingpersonal valor in direct confrontation and actually helpedboost the prestige of the group within Japan. There was a hiatus inJRA activity from late 1977 to mid-1986, after which the JRA beganrelying instead on bombings and rocket firings in which the JRAmembers would be more remote from the target and could escapemore easily. The change in tactics helped preserve in working orderan organization that, given its own remoteness from Japan, had difficultiesrecruiting new members. The JRA has been, and remained, arather small group, numbering at most perhaps 25 members and laterdiminishing to at most eight active members, whose identities havebecome fairly well known among police organizations throughoutthe world, making it more imperative for them to avoid capture.The most notorious of the JRA actions was the massacre of 26people at Israel’s Lod airport on 30 May 1972, carried out by threeJRA gunmen on behalf of the PFLP. The sole surviving gunman, KozoOkamoto, was imprisoned in Israel until 1985 when he was releasedin exchange for Israeli prisoners and allowed to fly to Libya, where hewas accorded a hero’s welcome. On 13 September 1974 the JRA occupiedthe French embassy in the Netherlands, holding the ambassadorand 10 other hostages who were later freed in exchange for release ofan imprisoned JRA member and safe passage to South Yemen. On4 August 1975, 10 JRA gunmen seized the U.S. consulate in KualaLumpur, Malaysia, and held 52 hostages, including the U.S. consul andSwedish charge d’affaires, threatening to kill them if seven imprisonedJRA members in Japan were not released. Only five of those JRAmembers released opted to leave, flying to Libya via Kuala Lumpur.On 14 May 1986, in Jakarta, the JRA detonated a car bomb outsidethe Canadian embassy and launched rockets against the U.S.and Japanese embassies from a nearby hotel. Fingerprints found inthe room with the launcher matched those of a known JRA member,although credit was taken in the name of the Anti-Imperialist InternationalBrigades. This resumption of JRA activity occurred within amonth of the U.S. air bombing raid in retaliation for the 5 April 1986bombing of the LaBelle Discothèque in West Berlin, Germany, byLibyan agents. This circumstance along with JRA members’ choiceof Libya as a sanctuary tended to suggest Libyan state sponsorshipof this group. On 9 June 1987 another rocket attack coupled witha car bombing was made against the U.S. and British embassies in