The Iraqi Liberation Army (ILA) is a Kurdish separatist organization that attacked Turkish and Iraqi targets in Turkey and Lebanon in the early 1980s. <P><br />On September 28, 1980, the group blew up an oil pipeline in Turkey which ran from northern Iraq to the Mediterranean. The group also was one of several groups to claim responsibility for the December 15, 1981 suicide bombing of the Iraqi Embassy in Lebanon. The attack completely demolished the embassy, killing at least 61 and injuring over 100. Among the dead was the Iraqi ambassador, Abdul Razzak Lafta. In addition to the ILA, the Army for the Liberation of Kurdistan and al Dawa  --  an Iraqi Muslim fundamentalist group  --  both claimed responsibility for the attack. No indication of motive was given by the attackers before or after the attack, making it unclear which group's claim is most credible and whether the motive was religious or separatist. <P><br />An unrelated group of the same name has also emerged more recently as part of the Iraqi insurgency. The most recent Iraqi Liberation Army first appeared on July 15, 2003 when it issued a public statement on Arab television warning foreign countries not to send troops to Iraq to fight alongside the U.S. Some experts speculated that the ILA was one and the same with the Iraqi National Liberation Army (INLA). The INLA emerged several days before the ILA, making a similar statement. The INLA described itself as a diverse organization, made up of members of all the ethnic groups and religions in Iraq. The group was believed to be secular and nationalistic, though they did claim support from the Hawza in Najaf, a Shia school of Islamic study. Neither the ILA nor the INLA has been linked to any high-profile attacks or incidents since the start of the war. It is unclear if either group acted on its threats against foreign troops. Given the generic names of the ILA and INLA, it is possible they were aliases or umbrella organizations for smaller insurgent groups. <br />