Anti-Imperialist Cell (AIZ) was an offshoot organization of the Red Army Faction (RAF), the prominent West German terrorist group.  AIZ was comprised of former RAF members who disagreed with the RAF leadership about the group's cessation of violence on April 10, 1992.  Reasonable estimates of the size of the group at its peak vary from twenty or thirty to as many as eighty members.  Although similar to the RAF in its ideology, AIZ also voiced an affinity for Islamic groups worldwide and attempted to increase contact with such groups. AIZ understood itself as the extended arm of the Third World's liberation movements and expressly advocated an armed struggle carried out by guerrillas. In the view of the AIZ, the imperialistic bloc of power consisted primarily of the United States, the EU, Russia and Japan.<br /><p><br />AIZ mounted eight bombing attacks in Germany between 1994 and 1996.  The group bombed the house of Volkmar Koehler, the head of the German-Moroccan Society.  This was in protest of German assistance to the Moroccan government.  AIZ also bombed a Dusseldorf office building which was housing the Peruvian Consulate.  This attack was intended to show solidarity with the Shining Path rebels in Peru and was followed by the release of a twenty-six page communiqu&eacute; excoriating the Peruvian government's domestic policies.  AIZ's most audacious attack was the firebombing of the house of a member of Germany's top-secret GSG-9 counter-terrorism unit. AIZ also targeted Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Bundestag deputies.  AIZ was never responsible for any fatalities but was considered eminently dangerous due to its choice of targets.  <br /><p><br />Since 1995, AIZ has not been responsible for any major attacks.  The group dissolved after the arrest of its leader Bernard Uzun and one of Uzun's primary accomplices.  AIZ could not survive after the arrests for two reasons.  First, the increase in the number and the danger of its attacks led to strong rebukes throughout German society, including from radical leftist groups.  The second consideration is that AIZ members seem to have been primarily ordinary citizens who did not organize too often and only committed violent action in their leisure time.  Thus, with the leadership gone many AIZ members simply returned to their ordinary lifestyle.<br />