Osamu Maruoka

Advocating revolution through terrorism, they set up their own group, declaring war on the state in September 1969.

The police quickly arrested many of them, including founder and intellectual leader Takaya Shiomi, who was in jail by 1970.

During the 1970s and 1980s, JRA carried out a series of attacks in Japan and around the world, including:

The Japanese Red Army (日本赤軍) was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001.

It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States.

The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971, and was most active in the 1970s and 1980s, operating mostly out of Lebanon with PFLP collaboration and funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as Syria and North Korea.

After the Lod Airport massacre, it sometimes called itself the Arab-JRA.

The group was also variously known as the Anti-Imperialist International Brigade (AIIB), the Holy War Brigade, and the Anti-War Democratic Front.

The JRA's stated goals were to overthrow the Japanese government and the monarchy, as well as to start a world revolution.

Fusako Shigenobu had been a leading member in the Red Army Faction (赤軍派) in Japan, whose roots lay in the Communist League, part of the militant New Left in Japan.

The Red Army Faction lost about 200 members, and the remnants merged with the Maoist group Revolutionary Left Faction (Kakumei sa-ha) to form the United Red Army (連合赤軍) in July 1971.

The United Red Army became notable during the Asama-Sanso incident, when it murdered fourteen of its members on Mount Haruna, before a week-long siege involving hundreds of police leaving a bystander and a police officer dead.

Fusako Shigenobu had left Japan with only a handful of dedicated people, but her group is said to have had about 40 members at its height and was, after the Lod Airport massacre, one of the best-known armed leftist groups in the world.

The JRA had close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Wadie Haddad.

It was dependent on the PFLP for financing, training, and weaponry.

In April 2001, Shigenobu issued a statement from detention declaring the JRA had disbanded, and that their battles should henceforth be done by legal means.

The National Police Agency publicly stated that a successor group was founded in 2001, called Rentai Movement (ムーブメント連帯).

On February 15, 2022, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department renewed calls for arresting other ex-JRA terrorists who have not been arrested, including Kunio Bando and Kozo Okamoto.