TOKYO –
Kozo Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who took part in a 1972 mass shooting at an Israeli airport, has died at age 78 in Lebanon, where he had lived for decades under political asylum.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced on July 23 that Okamoto had died in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
Okamoto was one of three Japanese gunmen who opened fire and threw grenades at Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv on May 30, 1972. The attack killed 26 people and injured dozens, with the victims including 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, eight Israelis and a Canadian citizen. The three attackers had traveled from Europe carrying rifles and grenades in their luggage.
The attack was carried out jointly by the Japanese Red Army and the PFLP, a Palestinian Marxist organization. The use of Japanese attackers was intended to evade airport security focused primarily on possible threats from Palestinian groups.
Okamoto was wounded and captured, while the other two attackers, Tsuyoshi Okudaira and Yasuyuki Yasuda, were killed. An Israeli court sentenced Okamoto to life imprisonment, but he was released in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian armed groups after serving about 12 years. He later settled in Lebanon and was granted political asylum.
The Japanese Red Army emerged from the violent wing of Japan’s New Left movement, which grew out of student protests and opposition to the country’s political establishment and security alliance with the United States during the 1960s.
Its ideological roots can be traced to the Red Army Faction, an extremist organization formed in 1969 by militants who believed that armed struggle was necessary to overthrow Japan’s government and trigger a global communist revolution.
The faction rejected parliamentary politics and peaceful protest, arguing that revolution should be advanced through attacks, hijackings, hostage-taking and cooperation with armed movements overseas. Police crackdowns and mass arrests weakened the organization in Japan, while some members moved abroad in search of allies, weapons and military training.
Fusako Shigenobu, who became the best-known leader of the Japanese Red Army, traveled to the Middle East in 1971 and developed close relations with the PFLP. Her organization sought to link Japan’s revolutionary movement with Palestinian and other international struggles, describing its objective as a worldwide revolution against capitalism, imperialism and the existing state system.
Although the Japanese Red Army was sometimes confused with the United Red Army, the two were separate organizations. The United Red Army operated mainly inside Japan and became notorious for the killing of 14 of its own members during ideological purges before the Asama-Sanso hostage siege in Nagano Prefecture in 1972. Shigenobu’s Japanese Red Army was based largely overseas and concentrated on international operations.
The Lod Airport attack brought the Japanese Red Army worldwide attention and marked the beginning of a series of hijackings, embassy seizures and hostage incidents during the 1970s.
In July 1973, Japanese Red Army and Palestinian militants hijacked a Japan Airlines aircraft traveling from Amsterdam to Tokyo. The plane was eventually flown to Libya, where the passengers and crew were released before the aircraft was destroyed.
Members of the organization stormed the French Embassy in The Hague in September 1974, taking the ambassador and other people hostage. The siege ended after France agreed to release an imprisoned Japanese Red Army member and provide the attackers with an aircraft.
In August 1975, gunmen seized hostages at a building housing several foreign embassies in Kuala Lumpur. Japan released imprisoned radicals in response to the attackers’ demands, allowing them to leave the country.
The group carried out another major hijacking in September 1977, when members seized a Japan Airlines aircraft after it departed Paris and forced it to land in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Japanese government agreed to pay a ransom and release several prisoners in exchange for the hostages, a decision that later became a source of political controversy.
At its height, the Japanese Red Army remained a small organization, with only several dozen core members, but its international partnerships allowed it to conduct attacks far beyond what its size might otherwise have permitted. It depended heavily on Palestinian organizations for bases, training, logistical support and access to weapons.
The group presented its violence as part of an international revolutionary campaign, but its attacks frequently targeted or endangered civilians. Governments including Japan and the United States classified it as a terrorist organization, and Japanese police continued searching for fugitive members decades after the group’s most active period.
The Japanese Red Army’s operational capacity declined during the 1980s and 1990s as international security cooperation increased, Palestinian political conditions changed and members were arrested or expelled from countries where they had been based.
Lebanese authorities detained Okamoto and four other Japanese Red Army members in 1997 on allegations related to forged documents and illegal residency. Four were later deported to Japan, but Lebanon granted Okamoto political asylum, preventing his extradition despite repeated requests from Japanese authorities.
Shigenobu was arrested in Osaka Prefecture in November 2000 after secretly returning to Japan using false documents. While in detention, she announced in April 2001 that the Japanese Red Army had been dissolved and said future political activity should be pursued through legal means. She was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in connection with the 1974 French Embassy siege and was released in May 2022.
Okamoto made few public appearances during his years in Lebanon. One of the most prominent came in May 2022, when he attended an event at a Beirut cemetery marking the 50th anniversary of the airport attack. Palestinian supporters regarded him as a symbol of solidarity with their cause, while Japan continued to list him as a wanted suspect.
His death leaves the 1972 airport massacre as the defining event of his life and one of the most notorious episodes in the history of Japanese political extremism.
Source: FNN
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