Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S LIBERATION PARTY/FRONT • 599cal Palestinian groups as well as with Greek leftist terrorists and theKurdish Workers’ Party.Dev Sol emerged in 1978 as a splinter group from Dev Yol (RevolutionaryRoad), which itself split from the Turkish People’s LiberationArmy in 1975. Dev Sol engaged in numerous murders of rightistpoliticians, writers, and students. Following the Turkish military coupand crackdown in September 1980, many members of the group werearrested or killed in clashes with security forces. On 2 October 1980Dev Sol bombed U.S. Army buildings in Izmir, causing minor damages.Two days later an unoccupied U.S. Air Force staff sergeant’scar was firebombed by Dev Sol. On 24 May 1981 a Turkish AirlinesDC-9 with 112 passengers and seven crew members was hijackedby four Dev Sol members from Istanbul to Bulgaria where eventuallythe terrorists were overpowered by the passengers and captured. On 5November 1982 the Turkish tourism office in Amsterdam was seizedby 10 Dev Sol members who took two hostages for three hours untilDutch police rushed and overpowered the terrorists.During 1983 to 1989 the group disappeared from view due to thesevere repression of leftist terrorists within Turkey in that period. Unlikemany other Turkish leftist groups, however, Dev Sol has made acomeback. During 1990–1991 Dev Sol members killed at least fouractive and retired Turkish generals and some 30 police officers, andbeginning in 1991 they resumed attacks on Western businessmen andmilitary personnel within Turkey. During 1991 Dev Sol murderedtwo American contractors and one British businessman in Turkey,attempted to murder one U.S. Air Force officer in his home in Izmir,and conducted more than 30 bombings of Western diplomatic, commercial,and cultural targets in Turkey. In April and July of 1992 DevSol launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul and also triedto murder an American administrator of a religious hospital with acar bomb in July 1992.The group suffered both from severe police retaliation, with raidson several of its safe houses, and from internal factionalism andsplintering. The remaining active terrorist splinter group renameditself the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C)and inaugurated a new campaign in January 1996 by assassinatinga prominent Turkish businessman, Ozdemir Sabanci, in what wasthought to be his high-security office building in Istanbul. During1997 the DHKP/C conducted three attacks using light antiarmor