The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) is a republican paramilitary organization operating in Northern Ireland. Founded by Seamus Costello on December 8, 1974, the INLA is the armed wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and a splinter group of the Official Irish Republican Army (Official IRA). <p><br />The Official IRA, with its Marxist-inspired ideology, emerged in 1969 following the split of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) into the Official and Provisional factions. In 1972, following a series of politically damaging attacks against civilians, the Official IRA declared a ceasefire and announced its intention to join the political process. Repubican dissents, desiring a continuation of the armed struggle against the British presence in Northern Ireland, broke away from the organization and formed the INLA in 1974. <p><br />As a paramilitary organization in Northern Ireland, the INLA espouses a unique ideology of militant republicanism coupled with a Marxist-Leninist political and social approach. The organization fights to unite all 32 counties of Ireland under an independent communist Irish state. Currently six counties in Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom and 26 counties comprise the Republic of Ireland. <p><br />Members of the INLA have conducted attacks against British security forces, Northern Ireland's police forces, Protestants (civilians and paramilitaries), and rival republicans through the use of bombings, assassinations, and armed attacks. The group's most publicized attack occurred in May 1979 when it claimed responsible for the assassination of Airey Neave, a prominent member of the British Parliament and close political supporter of Margaret Thatcher.  Airey Neave was killed by a car bomb shortly before the 1979 election that resulted in the selection of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. In 1997, three imprisoned members of the INLA assassinated Billy "King Rat" Wright, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader also ensconced in Maze prison. <p><br />Shortly after its formation, the INLA was engaged in a bitter feud with its founding group, the Official IRA, which sought to destroy the faction. In the 1980s, the INLA was almost torn apart by factionalism, intra-republican rivalries, criminality, and arrests.  One such rivalry involved an armed group composed of former INLA members, the Irish People's Liberation Organization, that attempted to annihilate the INLA in 1987. <br />