On this day: 1970 - RAF Terrorist Group Formed

On this day in 1970, the Red Army Faction, commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang or Baader-Meinhof Faction (RAF), was formed by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. The group was a communist left-wing militant organization whose goals were the opposition of fascist regimes, the end of the Vietnam War, and for West Germany to acknowledge earlier German Nazism. Using bombs as its main weapon, the RAF is said to be responsible for 34 deaths and numerous casualties during nearly 30 years of operation. 

The RAF, like the Weather Underground (AKA Weathermen) in the United States, are representative of left wing politically based terrorist organizations of the cold-war era which espoused Marxist-Leninist philosophies. Groups such as the RAF were structured and hierarchical in character as opposed to today's decentralized global ensemble of actors and franchise groups centered around al-Qaeda philosophy.  

                                    Aftermath of the 1981 RAF bombing of U.S. Air Forces Europe headquarters at 
                                                 Ramstein Air Base, Germany - Source: http://goo.gl/BXuRC

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Steven Kuhr

Emergency Management Nexus
Disaster History

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