two groups included the August 27, 1982, assassina-
tion of the Turkish military attaché to Canada in Ot-
tawa. This murder was preceded by the assassina-
tions of the Turkish consul general in Los Angeles,
California, on January 28, and the honorary Turkish
consul general of New England in Somerville, Mas-
sachusetts, on May 4. Other incidents claimed by
these organizations were bombing attacks on shops
owned by Turkish government officials and Turkish
diplomatic facilities.
A Croatian separatist organization known as the
Croatian Freedom Fighters was responsible for four
bombings in 1980 and 1981, including a pipe bomb-
ing of the New York State Supreme Court building in
Manhattan on January 23, 1981, two attacks on busi-
nesses owned by Yugoslavian officials, and a car
bomb targeting the Washington, D.C., home of Yu-
goslavia’s chargé d’affaires.
An unusual terrorist incident occurred in Wash-
ington, D.C., on August 7, 1981, when twenty-four
members of the People’s Mujahideen of Iran in-
vaded the Iranian interests section of the Algerian
embassy and took six people hostage. The siege
lasted one hour. An individual act of terrorism oc-
curred in Richmond, Virginia, on September 14,
1988, when a young armed Lebanese man frustrated
with the civil war in his country took over a military
recruiting office and demanded that a statement
about the Lebanese situation be read over two local
radio stations. He surrendered peacefully after six
hours.Impact On November 7, 1983, the U.S. Senate was
bombed by the ARU. Though no one was injured in
the attack, the reaction by officials in Washington
was quick. Security was heightened around govern-
ment buildings, and federal funding increased for
agencies involved in security and the surveillance of
political activists of all persuasions. Much of the gov-
ernment reaction was related to recent terrorist inci-The Eighties in America Terrorism 961
Police at the scene of the notorious Brinks armored truck robbery of 1981. The robbery, carried out by left-wing extremists, resulted in the
deaths of two police officers and one member of the Black Liberation Army.(AP/Wide World Photos)