Fusako Shigenobu
Japanese communist activist (born 1945)
Fusako Shigenobu (Japanese: 重信 房子, romanized: Shigenobu Fusako; IPA: [ɕiɡe̞no̞bɯ̟ ɸɯ̟sa̠ko̞]; born September 28, 1945) is a Japanese communist activist, writer, and the founder and leader of the now-disbanded militant group Japanese Red Army (JRA).
Born in Japan, Shigenobu became involved in New Left activism while attending night school at Meiji University in Tokyo. In 1969, she joined the Red Army Faction (RAF), a communist group that advocated immediate, armed revolution against the governments of the United States and Japan. Eventually becoming one of its senior leaders, Shigenobu played a significant role in establishing the International Relations Bureau for the organization.
In 1971, she helped found the JRA as an offshoot of the RAF. That same year, Shigenobu and the JRA relocated to the Middle East in an effort to start a world revolution, therefore she came in contact with terror groups within Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). During the 1970s and 1980s, members of the JRA took part in a number of violent incidents, including bombings, mass shootings, and hijackings. Although Shigenobu did not directly participate in these activities, during this time she attained international fame as the leader and public-facing spokesperson for the JRA.
Under her leadership, the JRA allied with Palestinian militant groups to carry out high-profile terrorist attacks globally, most notably the Lod Airport Massacre (at what is now Ben Gurion Airport) on May 30, 1972.
Arriving in the baggage area, the gunmen pulled assault rifles and grenades from violin cases and fired indiscriminately into the crowd. 26 people were murdered (mostly Puerto Rican pilgrims and Israeli citizens) and over 80 were injured.
Two attackers died during the assault, while the third, Kozo Okamoto, was captured.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q272118. VIAF identifies the subject as 38298217. The Library of Congress control number is n83193505. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1969, 1971 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fusako Shigenobu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.