Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

554 • PROVISIONAL IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMYThe group originated in Turin and spread to Florence, Milan, andNaples. Due to the police crackdown following the kidnapping andmurder of former prime minister Aldo Moro in early 1978 at thehands of the Red Brigades, Italian police were able to identify about165 PL members, who were largely apprehended by October 1982,so ending the organization.PROVISIONAL IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (PIRA). Name adoptedby the modern Irish Republican Army group that split fromthe “Official” IRA in December 1969. Once the older Official IRA declaredits cease-fire in the summer of 1972, the Provisional IRA groupbecame the de facto IRA, and “IRA” has been used to designate thatgroup from 1972 onward rather than the more awkward “PIRA.”– Q –QADDAFI, MUAMMAR (1942– ). Leader of the coup d’état thatoverthrew King Idris of Libya on 1 September 1969, ColonelMuammar Qaddafi is the de facto head of state of the Libyan ArabRepublic, also called by Qaddafi the Libyan People’s Arab SocialistJamahariyyah. Qaddafi is of Bedouin background and although hepresents himself as a devout Muslim, he has opposed Islamic fundamentalistgroups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and has aidedAlgeria in its campaign against Salafist rebels. His government wasalso the first to issue an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden after alQa’eda–affiliated Libyans murdered two German tourists in 1991.As a youth Qaddafi greatly admired Egyptian President GamalAbdel Nasser and so his pronounced anti-Western sentiments appearto spring from his ardent Pan-Arabism and hatred of Israel. Accordingly,he ordered U.S. military forces out of Libya in 1970, canceledthe British-Libyan military accord in 1972, nationalized U.S. oilcompanies’ holdings in Libya, and played an instrumental role withinthe Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in raisingproducer oil prices. Qaddafi’s involvement with state sponsorshipof terrorist groups began in the same period with aid to BlackSeptember in its attack on the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoumon 1 March 1973 and in its attack on Athens airport on 5 August1973. Libya also supported the terrorists responsible for the OPEC