Armed Commandos of Liberation -- Founding Group
Independent Armed Revolutionary Movement (MIRA) -- Supported Cause

Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Puertoriquena

<a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=RQ">Puerto Rico</a>, <a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=US">United States</a>

The Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) is a Puerto Rican terrorist organization responsible for numerous attacks on continental U.S. soil.  FALN, one of several Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist groups, set itself apart by repeatedly attacking U.S. citizens and facilities for roughly a decade.  By utilizing terrorists based in both Puerto Rico and the Unites States, FALN was able to attacks targets in Puerto Rico, New York, and Chicago. <P> FALN is a terrorist organization committed to full Puerto Rican independence from the United States.  The group was primarily active from 1974 to 1985, and directly caused the deaths of five people, dozens of injuries, and several million dollars worth of damages to facilities.  In one if its most brazen statements, FALN threatened to attack nuclear facilities in 1980, which would have made FALN the first terrorist organization to engage in a nuclear attack.  Fortunately, FALN never followed through on its threatened nuclear assault.

Since 1985, FALN has been largely inactive.  On September 7, 1999, U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton granted clemency to twelve imprisoned FALN members.  In a 1998 referendum regarding Puerto Rico's status, only two and a half percent of Puerto Ricans voted for independence.  Due to the lack of interest in Puerto Rican independence, a resurgence of FALN does not seem likely in the near term.

Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front -- Umbrella Organization
People's Liberation Forces (El Salvador) -- Ally

National Resistance, Resistencia Nacional (RN)

In 1975, the Armed Forces of National Resistance emerged from an existing terrorist organization, the Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP).  The Armed Forces of National Resistance's leadership group consisted primarily of middle-class citizens with backgrounds in the Christian Democratic Party's youth movement.  The group's ideology was principally expressed in actions against foreign corporations, investors, and governments.  The Armed Forces of National Resistance expressly criticized the "imperialism" exported by Japan, Germany, North America, and Great Britain.  FARN accused corporations from these areas of exploiting underdeveloped peoples for their own gain.  The group also accused the associated foreign governments of complicity in the imperialist actions of the corporations.  <P> From 1975 to 1980, the Armed Forces of National Resistance mainly engaged in urban warfare and the kidnapping of business executives.  FARN gained publicity and supporters as a result of a series of high-publicity kidnappings.  In 1980, FARN and four other rebel organizations joined the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), an umbrella terrorist group with assistance from Cuba.