Abu Sayyaf, officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, was a Jihadist militant and pirate group that followed the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It was based in and around Jolo and Basilan islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines, where for more than five decades, Moro groups had been engaged in an insurgency seeking to make Moro Province independent. The group was considered violent and was responsible for the Philippines' worst terrorist attack, the bombing of MV Superferry 14 in 2004, which killed 116 people. The name of the group was derived from Arabic abu, and sayyaf. As of April 2023, the group was estimated to have about 20 members, down from 1,250 in 2000. They used mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles.
The October Crisis was a chain of political events in Canada that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross from his Montreal residence. These events saw the Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peacetime.
The history of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intertwines in its early stages with history of the Haganah.
Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. was a United States Army general. While serving as the commander of United States Central Command, he led all coalition forces in the Gulf War against Ba'athist Iraq.
The Christian Peacemaker hostage crisis involved four human rights workers of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who were held hostage in Iraq from November 26, 2005 by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. One hostage, Tom Fox, was killed, and the remaining three freed in a military operation on March 23, 2006.
The United States Army Intelligence Support Activity (USAISA), frequently shortened to Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), also known at various times as Mission Support Activity (MSA), Office of Military Support (OMS), Field Operations Group (FOG), Studies and Analysis Activity (SAA), Tactical Concept Activity, Tactical Support Team, and Tactical Coordination Detachment, and also nicknamed "The Activity" and the Army of Northern Virginia, is a United States Army Special Operations unit which serves as the intelligence gathering component of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Within JSOC, the unit is often referred to as Task Force Orange. Originally subordinated to the US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), it is one of the least known intelligence components of the United States military, tasked with clandestine HUMINT operations and collecting actionable intelligence during or prior to JSOC missions.
In Italy, the phrase Years of Lead refers to a period of political violence and social upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes.
The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted.
Operation Balavegaya was a combined military operation launched by the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna, the largest amphibious assault in its history. Operation Balavegaya was launched in response to the siege of Elephant Pass by the LTTE. It is believed that Operation Balavegaya was the largest and most successful military operation of the Sri Lankan military until Operation Riviresa in 1995.
On 27 April 1981, the Red Brigades (BR) kidnapped the 60-year-old Christian Democrat (DC) politician Ciro Cirillo and killed his two-man escort in the garage of his Naples apartment building. At the time, Cirillo directed reconstruction efforts in Campania devastated by the earthquake in the Irpinia region on 23 November 1980. He was released after a controversial deal with the Camorra; they did not negotiate with the BR and only asked them to release him. This happened several years after the Italian state had refused to negotiate with the BR in their kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, leading observers and critics to wonder what changed and the reasons behind the state's negotiation. Cirillo died in 2017.
Bruce Bennett Gorham Clarke is a former United States Army officer. Clarke is currently president of Bruce Clarke Consultants, Inc., a defense consulting firm. He is widely published on military and national security affairs, including in his book Expendable Warriors (2007) and in a regular column for the Examiner.
Trần Quang Khôi was a Brigadier general in the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, also referred to in Italy as the Moro case, was a seminal event in Italian political history. On the morning of 16 March 1978, the day on which a new cabinet led by Giulio Andreotti was to have undergone a confidence vote in the Italian Parliament, the car of Aldo Moro, former prime minister and then president of the Christian Democracy party, was assaulted by a group of far-left terrorists known as the Red Brigades in via Fani in Rome. Firing automatic weapons, the terrorists killed Moro's bodyguards — two Carabinieri in Moro's car and three policemen in the following car — and kidnapped him. The events remain a national trauma. Ezio Mauro of La Repubblica described the events as Italy's 9/11. While Italy was not the sole European country to experience extremist terrorism, which also occurred in France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain, the murder of Moro was the apogee of Italy's Years of Lead.
Shay Avital Rapoport is a Major General (Ret.) in the IDF and former head of the Special Operations Forces Command.
The Red Brigades was a Marxist–Leninist armed terrorist organization, which was operating as a far-left guerilla and terrorist group based in Italy. It was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy's Years of Lead, including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978. A former prime minister of Italy through the Organic centre-left, the murder of Aldo Moro was widely condemned, as was the murder of left-wing trade unionist Guido Rossa in January 1979. Sandro Pertini, the then left-wing president of Italy, said at Rossa's funeral: "It is not the President of the Republic speaking, but comrade Pertini. I knew [the real] red brigades: they fought with me against the fascists, not against democrats. For shame!"
The kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer marked the end of the German Autumn in 1977.
The 9th Armoured Division is an elite division of the Syrian Arab Army, part of the 1st Army Corps and it was established in 1970.
On 8 March 2012, members of the British military Special Boat Service, supported by members of the Nigerian Army, attempted a rescue mission to rescue British hostage Chris McManus and Italian hostage Franco Lamolinara from Boko Haram, supported by Al Qaeda, in Sokoto in north-west Nigeria. The mission failed when both hostages were executed by their captors.
Allied Land Forces Southern Europe (LANDSOUTH) was a military command of NATO's Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH) command. Based in Verona in Northern Italy LANDSOUTH was tasked with defending Italy north of the Apennine mountains against a Warsaw Pact or Yugoslavian invasion. Activated in 1951 under an Italian Army four-star general, the command was disbanded in 2004.
Operation Winter Harvest was a search and rescue mission tasked to Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) in response to the kidnapping of U.S. Brigadier General James Dozier on 17 December 1981 by the Red Brigades, an Italian terrorist organization. ISA operatives worked in conjunction with Italian police to locate the kidnapped general primarily through the use of intercepted Red Brigades radio communications. The operation, which took place during December 1981 and January 1982, resulted in the successful rescue of Dozier as well as the arrest of a number of Red Brigades members.
United States Army 
Major general 
