Red Brigades

The Red Brigades (Italian: Brigate Rosse, often abbreviated BR) is a far-left terrorist organization and guerrilla group based in Italy, responsible for numerous violent incidents, including assassinations, such as the murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro.

The Red Brigades are also involved in kidnappings and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead".

Formed in 1970, the organization seeks to create a "revolutionary" state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Red Brigades attain notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent attempts to destabilize Italy.

Models for the Red Brigades include the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the Second World War Italian partisan movement, which was itself a mostly leftist, anti-fascist revolutionary movement.

The group is influenced by volumes on the Tupamaros published by Feltrinelli, "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades", and is influenced by and sees itself as a continuation of the Italian partisan resistance movement of the 1940s, which is interpreted as an example of a youthful anti-fascist minority using violent means for just ends.

The group's most infamous act takes place in 1978, when the second groups of the BR, headed by Mario Moretti, kidnap the former Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who is negotiating a compromesso storico, or "historic compromise", with the Communists.

The kidnappers kill five members of Moro's police escort, and murder Moro himself fifty-four days later.

In the 1980s, the group is broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turn pentito and assist the authorities in capturing the other members.

No related events match the current filters.