March 3, 1970: First action linked to the Japanese Red Army (JRA) when nine terrorists calling themselves the Red Army Faction and led by Takeshi Okamoto, JRA core-member Kozo's elder brother, and Takamaro Tamiya, force a Japanese airliner to fly to North Korea where they are still based. August 1971 to February 1972: The 'Massacre of the Innocents', in which 14 members of the United Red Army are tortured and killed by their leaders at a villa north of Tokyo. Two policemen and a bystander are killed in the shootout that ends the siege. May 31, 1972: In the first trans-national attack, three JRA members working for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, kill 26 people and wound 76, mostly Latin American pilgrims, at Lod airport in Israel. Tsuyoshi Okudaira and Yasuyuki Yasuda are killed and Kozo Okomoto is captured and sentenced to life imprisonment, but freed in 1985. July 20, 1973: A Japan Air Lines jumbo jet is hijacked from Amsterdam and flown to Libya where it is blown up on the runway at Benghazi. January 31, 1974: JRA terrorists fail to blow up an oil storage depot in an attack in Singapore. They then hijack a ferry, holding out until flown out of the country. No one is hurt. February 6, 1974: In a linked raid, Palestinian terrorists seize the Japanese embassy in Kuwait to force the release of the JRA group trapped in Singapore. July 26, 1974: Yoshiaka Yamada is arrested at Orly airport carrying US$10,000 which was to be used by the JRA to finance a series of kidnappings. Most of the notes turn out to be poor counterfeits. September 13, 1974: In an operation partly planned and financed by Carlos the Jackal, who is now in jail in France awaiting trial, three JRA members take over the French Embassy in The Hague and successfully demand the release of Yamada. On September 15, Carlos throws a grenade into a store in St Germain-des Pres, near Paris, killing two and wounding 12 in support of the JRA action. He promises more attacks if the French Government does not agree to the demands. August 4, 1975: Terrorists attack US and Swedish embassies in Kuala Lumpur and hold 50 officials hostage in exchange for five arrested JRA members, including Kunio Bando who was arrested after the 1972 villa siege. September 28, 1977: A Japanese Air Lines jet is hijacked by five terrorists, flown to Dhaka in Bangladesh and successfully held ransom for US$6 million and the release of six JRA prisoners. The hijackers and released prisoners join an international group being set up by the PFLP and Carlos. May 14, 1986: Home-made mortars are fired at the Japanese and US embassies in Jakarta from the balcony of a hotel room. A car is also destroyed in a car park used by Canadian embassy staff. June 9, 1987: Home-made mortars, using pipe bombs set off by timing devices, are directed at the British and US embassies in Rome. April 12, 1988: Yu Kikumura is arrested on a highway in New Jersey after state police find three home-made pipe bombs in his rented car.
