The first attack claimed by the ARA took place in 1970, when a library in Lisbon, Portugal was bombed.  However, the next act of ARA violence did not take place until 1983, when a Turkish Embassy attache was gunned down in Brussels, causing some to question whether the 1970 bombing was perpetrated by a completely different Armenian Revolutionary Army.  The 1983 date is misleading because the ARA was operating from 1978-1982 under the name "Justice Commandoes for the Armenian Genocide" (JCAG).  JCAG bombed a number of Turkish targets (businesses, diplomatic cites, airline counters) in the US and Europe and promptly disappeared just as the ARA was born.  However, this disappearance still does not shed much light on the question of whether or not the 1970 ARA and the 1978 JCAG shared members.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia has become an independent, sovereign state, fulfilling the major objective of most of the terrorists.  Former terrorists now find themselves in the government or the military (or perhaps fighting the Azerbaijanis in the contested province of Nagorno-Kabakh), rather than conducting a campaign of international violence from the shadows.  The last act of ARA terrorism took place in 1985, and no further activity is expected. <br />

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)

New Armenian Resistance (NAR) -- Ally (Suspected)
Ninth of June Organization -- Splinter Group

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was the most well-known, well-organized, and prolific of the Armenian terrorist groups of the 1970's and 1980's.  Founded in 1975 by Hagop Hagopian and Hagop Tarakciyan, ASALA operated mainly out of bases in Beirut.  ASALA's primary objective was to increase awareness of the Armenian genocide and further the cause of Armenian independence.  In 1915, Turkey (then the center of the Ottoman Empire) attempted to eliminate systematically the sizable Armenian minority living within its borders; estimates of the final death toll range anywhere between a few hundred thousand to upwards of two million people.  The anger of the Armenian people, both in Armenia and abroad, only grew with time.  Turkey added fuel to the fire by refusing to acknowledge the scope of the killings or apologize publicly for them.  Some Armenians hoped that, as the Holocaust had generated international support for the founding of Israel, increasing awareness of the Armenian genocide (brought on by terrorist acts) might help them gain an independent homeland.  In addition to its nationalist mission, ASALA also promoted Marxism-Leninism and allied with other international terrorist groups with similar leanings, including the Irish Republican Army, Italian Red Brigades, and Kurdistan Workers Party.<br />