Radical Movements Archive

RAIPUR, India — To reverse military setbacks in key backcountry areas, India’s Maoist insurgents have adopted a new strategy that favors coordinated mass attacks over hit-and-run guerilla warfare, and they have stepped up their recruitment efforts on the Internet. Pro-Maoist spokesmen say the move towards larger, less-frequent strikes is the result of recent setbacks in states like Andhra Pradesh, where police forces have killed hundreds of fighters and arrested top leaders since peace talks collapsed in late 2004. But they cite the spread of activities to more states as a sign the movement is down but far from out. “The […]

KATMANDU, Nepal — The postponement of Nepal’s crucial November elections has dealt a serious blow to the Himalayan nation’s fragile peace process, dashing the credibility of the interim government, allowing time for the security situation to worsen and shifting the focus of peace talks away from elections and towards the much thornier issue of armies. Earlier this month, the polls were delayed for a second time because of new Maoist demands and general political apathy. An emergency session of the interim parliament broke for a festival holiday on Oct. 16 without managing any breakthroughs amongst bickering parties. The result in […]

On July 13, 1989, a frantic getaway is taking place out front of an apartment house at 5 Linke Bahngasse in Vienna. In an article for the Austrian weekly Profil, the journalists Sibylle Hamann und Martin Staudinger reconstruct the scene: A secret agent has been shot and he is dragged by two other men between two parked cars. He is bleeding from multiple wounds. A man on a motorcycle pulls up beside them. All four are members of an Iranian terror commando unit that has left behind a bloodbath in a two-room apartment on the fourth floor of the building […]

After long being spared the violence that has characterized Basque separatist agitation in the Spanish Basque country, the French Basque country has in recent months been hit by a series of increasingly spectacular attacks. French police investigations in connection with one such attack led to the arrest last month of 13 people, including some with known links to the Basque terrorist group ETA. An internal ETA document uncovered last month by the local Basque news service Vasco Press suggests that the upswing in violence may be the result of a new ETA “strategy of confrontation” with France. -o- In a […]