vault backup: 2026-05-15 15:54:04

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PARAMILITARY/Baader-Meinhof Group.md

@@ -1,16 +1,51 @@
 ---
+aliases:
+  - Red Army Faction
+  - RAF
+  - Rote Armee Fraktion
+  - Baader-Meinhof Group
 tags:
   - Organization
   - Paramilitary
   - Germany
   - Terrorism
+  - ColdWar
+  - 1970s
+  - 1980s
 category: "Paramilitary"
-summary: "The Baader-Meinhof Group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), was a West German far-left militant organization."
+summary: "The Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, RAF), commonly called the Baader-Meinhof Group after its founders, was a West German far-left terrorist organization active from 1970 to 1998. Founded by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, it conducted bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings targeting West German capitalism and the American military presence, with major operations including the 1972 bombing campaign, the 1977 German Autumn (Schleyer kidnapping, Lufthansa hijacking), and the 1989 assassination of Deutsche Bank chief Alfred Herrhausen."
 start: 1970
 end: 1998
 location: "West Germany"
 ---
-The [[Baader-Meinhof Group]], also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), was a West German far-left militant organization. They were involved in the 1976 [[Entebbe hijacking]], where they boarded an [[Air France]] jet flying from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Paris]] and diverted it to [[Entebbe Airport]] in [[Uganda]].[^1]
+
+The Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, RAF), commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Group after its founding figures, was a [[West Germany|West German]] far-left terrorist organization that operated from 1970 to 1998. Founded by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof along with Gudrun Ensslin and others, the RAF drew its ideology from Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist frameworks, targeting what it characterized as the fascist continuities of West German capitalism and the American military occupation of German territory.[^1]
+
+### Foundation and First Generation
+
+The RAF's origins lay in the student protest movements of the late 1960s and the radicalization of a faction that concluded electoral and protest politics were insufficient. Baader, Meinhof, and Ensslin carried out their first arson attacks against Frankfurt department stores in 1968. After Baader's arrest and escape from custody in 1970 - an escape in which Meinhof, then a prominent left-wing journalist, participated - the group formally constituted itself. Meinhof authored the RAF's founding manifesto.[^1]
+
+The group trained in [[Jordan]] with Palestinian fedayeen organizations in 1970 before returning to [[West Germany]] to begin operations. Its first major campaign in May 1972 involved coordinated bombings against U.S. Army headquarters in Frankfurt and Heidelberg, the Hamburg police headquarters, and the Springer newspaper building in Hamburg, resulting in several deaths and dozens of injuries.[^1]
+
+### The 1977 German Autumn
+
+The most significant RAF operations occurred in the autumn of 1977, in what German media called the "German Autumn" (Deutscher Herbst). On September 5, 1977, RAF members kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer, president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and a former SS officer, killing his four bodyguards and driver in the ambush. On October 13, a Palestinian commando - coordinating with the RAF - hijacked [[Lufthansa]] Flight 181 from Mallorca, eventually diverting it to Mogadishu, [[Somalia]].
+
+The [[West Germany|West German]] government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt refused to release imprisoned RAF members in response to both the Schleyer kidnapping and the hijacking. The Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (GSG 9), the federal counterterrorism unit created following the [[Munich Olympic Massacre|1972 Munich Olympics]] failure, stormed the hijacked aircraft at Mogadishu on October 18, 1977, killing three of four hijackers and freeing all hostages. Hours after the rescue, Baader, Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their Stammheim Prison cells - officially ruled suicides, though the precise circumstances remained contested. Schleyer was subsequently murdered by his RAF captors.[^1]
+
+### Second and Third Generation
+
+Following the deaths of its founding leadership in 1977, the RAF reorganized with new recruits. The second and third generation RAF conducted further operations through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, including the 1977-era aftermath, the 1985 bombing of Rhein-Main Air Base, and the April 5, 1986 [[La Belle discotheque]] bombing in West [[Berlin]] (attributed to [[Libya]], not RAF). The RAF's most significant later operation was the November 30, 1989, assassination of Deutsche Bank chief executive Alfred Herrhausen, killed by an anti-tank mine triggered by a tripwire as his car passed.[^1]
+
+### Entebbe Connection
+
+On June 27, 1976, two members of the RAF - Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann - participated in the hijacking of [[Air France]] Flight 139 from [[Tel Aviv]] to [[Paris]], diverting it ultimately to Entebbe Airport in [[Uganda]] under Idi Amin's government. The operation was jointly conducted with members of the [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command|PFLP-GC]] and organized by Wadie Haddad's PFLP-EO. On July 4, 1976, Israeli special forces conducted Operation Entebbe, killing the hijackers, including Böse and Kuhlmann, and rescuing 102 of the 106 hostages.[^2]
+
+### Dissolution
+
+The RAF officially announced the end of its armed struggle in a statement released in April 1998, citing the changed political circumstances following the end of the Cold War and German reunification. By this point the organization had been effectively inactive for several years. The total death toll from RAF operations over its existence was approximately thirty-four people.
 
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.
+
+[^1]: Aust, Stefan. *The Baader Meinhof Complex.* Translated by Anthea Bell. Bodley Head, 2008. Originally published in German as *Der Baader Meinhof Komplex* (Hoffmann und Campe, 1985). This is the authoritative account of the RAF's history by a journalist who knew several of its members.
+[^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992. Netanyahu, Iddo. *Entebbe: A Defining Moment in the War on Terrorism.* Balfour Books, 2003.

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PARAMILITARY/Palestine Liberation Organization.md

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+category: "Paramilitary"
+tags:
+  - Organization
+  - Palestine
+  - Israel
+  - Middle_East
+  - Terrorism
+  - Diplomacy
+  - Arafat
+  - 1960s
+  - 1970s
+  - 1980s
+  - 1990s
+summary: "The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 under Arab League sponsorship as the representative body of the Palestinian people. Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement took control in 1969 and led it through guerrilla campaigns from bases in Jordan (to 1970), Lebanon (to 1982), and Tunisia (to 1994), before the Oslo Accords recognized the PLO as the legitimate Palestinian representative body and established the Palestinian Authority."
+start: 1964-05-28
+location: "Tunis, Tunisia (1982-1994); Ramallah, Palestinian Authority (1994-)"
+---
+
+The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established on May 28, 1964, at an Arab League-sponsored conference in Cairo as the umbrella organization for Palestinian political and military organizations. It was initially created under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's sponsorship as an instrument of Arab state policy; its early years were dominated by Ahmad al-Shuqairi, a lawyer and former diplomat who had close ties to the Arab League. Following the Arab states' defeat in the [[Six-Day War]] and the subsequent growth of independent Palestinian guerrilla organizations, the PLO was reorganized and [[Yasser Arafat]]'s Fatah movement assumed control of the PLO Executive Committee in February 1969.[^1]
+
+### Structure and Factions
+
+The PLO operated as a confederation of Palestinian political and military organizations, each maintaining its own structure, funding, and operational capacity within the umbrella framework. The PLO National Council (PNC) functioned as a parliament-in-exile, while the PLO Executive Committee served as the executive authority. The major constituent factions included:
+
+- Fatah (Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini), founded by Arafat in the late 1950s, the dominant faction from 1969 onward
+- PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), founded by George Habash in 1967 on a Marxist-Leninist and pan-Arab nationalist platform, responsible for multiple aircraft hijackings in 1968-1970
+- DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), a PFLP split led by Nayef Hawatmeh
+- PLF (Palestine Liberation Front), led by Abu Abbas (Muhammad Zaidan), responsible for the [[Achille Lauro]] hijacking in October 1985
+- PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command), led by Ahmed Jibril, which maintained closer ties to Syria and Iran than to the main PLO structure
+
+Factions that broke from the PLO included Abu Nidal's Fatah Revolutionary Council, which Arafat expelled in 1974. The Abu Nidal Organization subsequently carried out terrorist attacks against PLO-affiliated targets as well as Israeli and Western targets, creating a significant intelligence complication for states trying to distinguish PLO-sanctioned from PLO-opposed Palestinian violence.[^1]
+
+### Jordan and Black September (1970)
+
+By 1970 the PLO and its constituent factions had developed a significant quasi-governmental presence in Jordan, where Palestinian refugees constituted approximately half the population. PFLP and other factions carried out three simultaneous aircraft hijackings in September 1970, forcing the planes to a Jordanian airstrip (Dawson's Field) and negotiating mass hostage releases. The crisis prompted King Hussein of Jordan to move against PLO military forces; the resulting civil conflict (known as Black September) between Jordanian Army forces and PLO-affiliated fighters in September-October 1970 killed approximately 3,500 people and resulted in the PLO's expulsion from Jordan. PLO military forces and leadership relocated to Lebanon.[^1]
+
+The Black September Organization, a clandestine PLO-affiliated group created after the Jordan expulsion, carried out the [[Munich Olympic Massacre]] on September 5, 1972, killing eleven Israeli athletes and coaches. [[Mossad]]'s subsequent Operation Wrath of God targeted those responsible for Munich with a systematic assassination program that continued for years.[^1]
+
+### Lebanon (1971-1982)
+
+The PLO rebuilt its infrastructure in Lebanon, using the Palestinian refugee camps of southern Lebanon and Beirut as a base for guerrilla operations, diplomatic activity, and financial management. PLO institutions in Beirut included banks, hospitals, schools, and military headquarters. The PLO developed significant relationships with Lebanese leftist and Muslim political factions, contributing to the destabilization of Lebanon's fragile confessional political system and the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.[^1]
+
+Israeli military operations against PLO positions in southern Lebanon escalated through the 1970s. The June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon (Operation Peace for Galilee), directed by Defense Minister [[Ariel Sharon]], drove PLO forces out of their Lebanese positions and laid siege to Beirut. After negotiations mediated by American diplomat Philip Habib, the PLO agreed to evacuate Beirut in August 1982; Arafat and approximately 15,000 PLO fighters and personnel were transported by sea to Tunis and other countries.[^2]
+
+The Sabra and Shatila massacres (September 16-18, 1982) were carried out by Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias in Palestinian refugee camps in Israeli-controlled Beirut after the PLO's evacuation, killing between 800 and 3,500 civilians. Israeli forces commanded by Sharon surrounded the camps and allowed the Phalangists access; the Israeli Kahan Commission found Sharon personally responsible, resulting in his resignation as Defense Minister.[^2]
+
+### Tunis Exile and Oslo
+
+The PLO operated from Tunis from 1982 to 1994. During this period it maintained international diplomatic recognition from most of the developing world and Arab states as the representative of the Palestinian people, while Israel and the United States refused to negotiate with it directly. The First Intifada (1987-1993), a Palestinian civilian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza that surprised PLO leadership, shifted political momentum to internally-based Palestinian organizations and pressured all parties toward negotiation.[^1]
+
+Secret negotiations between Israeli and PLO representatives, conducted in Oslo, Norway, under Norwegian facilitation, produced the Oslo Accords, formally signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the presence of President Bill Clinton. The Declaration of Principles recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, committed Israel to negotiate Palestinian self-governance, and established the framework for the [[Palestinian Authority]] created in 1994 to govern Gaza and portions of the West Bank.[^1]
+
+### Arms Networks and Intelligence Connections
+
+The PLO's operations over three decades intersected with international arms networks and intelligence services in multiple documented ways. The [[PFLP-GC]] under Ahmed Jibril received Syrian and Iranian sponsorship and was linked to the [[Pan Am Flight 103]] bombing (Maltese timer evidence). Monzer al-Kassar, the Syrian arms dealer who appeared in multiple Iran-Contra-adjacent transactions, had significant PLO-connected relationships through his Palestinian wife's family and Syrian intelligence contacts. The PLO's own financing involved complex flows through Gulf states, diaspora fundraising, and bank accounts in multiple jurisdictions.[^1][^3]
+
+The CIA maintained contact with PLO officials through back channels from the early 1970s, despite formal American policy prohibiting direct PLO contact. Robert Ames, the CIA's Near East division chief killed in the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing, had developed a significant relationship with PLO intelligence chief Ali Hassan Salameh (a Black September commander who was also a CIA asset before his assassination by Mossad in 1979).[^1]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Rubin, Barry. *Revolution Until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO*. Harvard University Press, 1994. Quandt, William B. *Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967*. Brookings Institution Press, 2005.
+[^2]: Schiff, Ze'ev, and Ehud Ya'ari. *Israel's Lebanon War*. Simon and Schuster, 1984. Kahan Commission (Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut). Final Report, February 8, 1983.
+[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. TrineDay, 2010 (on Monzer al-Kassar / PLO connections).