In spite of distance and lack of discussion in the news media, the East Asian nation of Japan has played a very important role in the history of terrorist and extremist groups in the Middle East. While the headlines may currently focus on the recent beheading of two Japanese civilians by the Islamic State, they once were dominated by the actions of far-left Japanese groups that were an integral part of terrorism in the Middle East. A study of these linkages should begin by examining the heyday of the Cold War. At the time, Soviet and North Korean spies brought two very disparate forces, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Japanese Red Army Faction (JRAF), into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other regional issues. Arguably the most important event of this budding alliance involved the leader of the Japanese Red Army Faction, a woman named Fusako Shigenobu, becoming close friends with an influential member of the PFLP, Leila Ahmed. The two women formed a powerful relationship that defined their Marxist, anti-imperialist movements. Together, their mission was “to consolidate the international revolutionary alliance against the imperialists of the world.”
This movement also has substantial connections to North Korea and the Soviet Union. Much of the PFLP leadership was funded and armed by the Soviets. For example, the JRAF landed hijacked planes in Pyongyang, as I have mentioned in a previous article, and received covert funding and weapons through the Chongryon Korean advocacy group. These webs of government-sponsored terrorism call into question what, or how many, terrorist attacks throughout the Cold War may have germinated in the walls of the Kremlin or in the confines of Pyongyang. Later, in the 1980s, Colonel Gaddafi of Libya commissioned the Japanese Red Army to launch terrorist-style assaults on British and US interests globally, culminating in attacks on the US, Canadian and Japanese embassies in Jakarta, a bombing of a Neapolitan nightclub for US soldiers that killed five and other attacks. A member of the Japanese Red Army, Yu Kikumura, was arrested in New Jersey for planning to bomb a naval recruitment office on the anniversary of the US bombing of Libya in response to the Berlin discotheque bombings in 1986.
Once established as co-combatants in the fight against Israeli occupation, and having solidified their alliance with the premier communist powers of the time, the two groups sponsored a number of deadly strikes. In one of the most daring terrorist attacks of the 1970s, the PFLP and the United Red Army (the umbrella group housing the Japanese Red Army Faction) massacred 26 civilians at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv. Planning and launching the brazen attack from Lebanon, the group catapulted itself into the international consciousness, becoming the prominent leftist terrorist group of the era. The movement was one of many violent and nonviolent movements in the developed world in the latter half of the twentieth century. Political turbulence in developed economies led to such massive strikes and protests in the United States, relating to such topics as the Vietnam War. According to Yoshihiro Kuriyama, these movements decried what they considered to be Western imperialism, especially in regards to the events of the Cold War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their desire for massive world revolution was embraced and reciprocated by Leila Ahmed and the secularized, Marxist PFLP. The leader of the Japanese Red Army Faction, Shigenobu, remained in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East for decades before turning herself in for a huge show trial in Japan.
The global impact of the Japanese Red Army and their alliance with the PFLP was heavily felt, as they launched highly active terrorist affiliates in Dubai, Singapore, The Hague, Kuala Lumpur and Dhaka. These groups persisted deep into the 1980s, with numerous bank robberies and hijackings in order to fund their illicit activities. As recently as 2014, PFLP members who were affiliated with the JRA committed terrorist attacks on Israeli and occupied Palestinian soil, killing five people in a massacre at a Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem.
What few people today realize, however, is that this legacy of support for terror has everything to do with the very complex history of terrorism in Japan. These anti-imperialist movements grew exponentially in the late 1960s, as the war in Vietnam progressed and the Japanese economy expanded. This process led to the radicalization of multiple university student groups. The prevailing inspiration of groups like the JRA was an anti-US push in Japan that emphasized non-intervention and colonialism. Its founding roots would be found deep in the opposition against the history of Japanese aggression in the Pacific. The JRA and similar groups used the Japanese occupation of Korea, the establishment of US military bases on Japanese soil, and the post-World War II occupation as legitimizers for their radical agendas. US military actions in the Cold War period were also cited as a reason for attacking US embassies and interests. The Marxist bent of the JRA and the PFLP, as well as the links that this brought them to the Libyan leader, Gaddafi made them an interesting component of global terrorism in the turbulent Cold War-era Middle East. The influence and patronage of compatriots in the Soviet and North Korean governments played a key role in further destabilization of the Levant.
The Japanese government is currently under the impression that, despite the jailing of multiple former JRA members and some members of the PFLP, the group is active, yet dormant. Fusako Shigenobu, after turning herself in, has claimed that the group disbanded in 2000, but the recent deportation to Japan from the United States of a high-level member of the JRA has given the movement significant publicity in early 2015 and conspiracy theories about the actions of the JRA may not be far behind.
It is now strangely ironic that Japan’s foreign policy has become embroiled in far-flung wars in the Middle East. After decades of pacifism, Japan is in a period of strategic rearmament and changing attitudes towards the use of its military. After the violent deaths of two of its civilians, Japan is a nation on the brink, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowing revenge. It seems almost as if Japan has come full circle, as the decades of pacifism and non-intervention that did little to stop discontent for war at home has transformed into what may now be an abandoning of its peaceful values as conflict heats up around Chinese-Japanese-Taiwanese-Korean island disputes, the simmering tensions in the South China Sea, and now a conflict in the Middle East that threatens to drag Japan into a conflict that many do not want.
As this general transformation of Japan’s foreign policy occurs, the remnants of the old JRA could have a decisive role to play. It may be that increasing activism on the part of individual Japanese civilians in the Middle East, such as the two deceased hostages, and also on the part of the Japanese government will increase interest in the region for the Japanese populace as a whole. Already, organized movements against redefining the constitution and ending the era of Japanese pacifism have increased immensely. Violent protests have accompanied the birth of these movements, and it would not be out of the question to suggest that they might drive at least a few JRA sympathizers into action, or even possibly spur an awakening amongst the Red Army Faction diaspora. As Japan increases its involvement in international military affairs and terrorism, it may be arousing a sleeping giant of domestic opposition and possibly even terrorism.