Seems left wing terrorism is alive and well.
About.com: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl=/780410-SHVVvq/native/
On October 20, 1981, in Nyack, N.Y., a dozen members of the Weather Underground and
the Black Liberation Army robbed an armored Brink’s truck of $1.6 million. They killed
a Brink’s guard and wounded two others. At a police roadblock five miles from the
robbery, they killed two police officers and wounded a third. Four of the robbers were
captured, but eight escaped (Methvin, 1995). The combined forces of the two major
terrorist groups named their alliance the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO),
an alliance that also included members of the Black Panthers and the Republic of New
Africa (RNA) (Smith, 1994).
On November 3, 1984, two members of the M19CO were arrested at a mini-warehouse
they had rented in Cherry Hill, N.J. Police recovered more than 100 blasting caps, nearly
200 sticks of dynamite, more than 100 cartridges of gel explosive, and 24 bags of blasting
agent from the warehouse. The alliance’s last bombing was on February 23, 1985, at the
Policemen’s Benevolent Association in New York City (Smith, 1994).
A search of the M19CO’s safe houses (hideouts) revealed documents that indicated its
members were planning to escalate their terrorist campaign. The members had
information on two dozen corporate executives and leading New York and New Jersey
police officials including biographies, photographs, and daily schedules. They had
drawings, floor plans, and photographs of police stations and barracks. They also had a
file on former President Richard Nixon’s residences (Methvin, 1995).
The United Freedom Front was another leftist terrorist group operating in the United
States during the same time as the M19CO. The group had a Marxist orientation and was
striving for “a whole different system of distributing economic wealth in this country and
an end to American imperialism” (Smith, 1994). Although there were only eight
members in the group, they were responsible for 29 known robberies and bombings from
October 4, 1975, to September 26, 1984. One of the members, Thomas Manning, was
convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper (Smith, 1994).
Members of the radical left in the United States have maintained links to Puerto Rican
separatist terrorist groups. The connections are in part due to all of these organizations
having a Marxist-Leninist orientation and in part because they have received support
from the communist government in Cuba. Cuba has not been the only funding source,
however. In 1983, one of these groups, the Macheteros, robbed a Wells Fargo depot in
West Hartford, Connecticut, of $7.1 million, only $80,000 of which has been recovered
(Smith, 1994).
Left-wing groups were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of
domestic terrorism in the United States during the 1980s. About half of these incidents
were committed by Puerto Rican separatist groups and the remainder by traditional leftist
terrorist groups like M19CO (Smith, 1994).
Although the threat from leftist extremists has decreased in the past decade, it should not
be ignored. From 1980 to 1985, a five-year period when leftist domestic terrorists were
most active in the United States, 173 terrorist incidents were recorded by the FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995). During the next 10 years, when right-wing
extremists were most active, only 83 incidents were recorded (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 1995).
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
