(Nihon Sekigun). Formed in 1969, it was responsible for, among other acts, the hijacking of a domestic Japan Airlines jet to Pyongyang in 1970 and the 1972 Lod Airport massacre. It also participated in the Laju incident, an attack on a Shell oil refinery in Singapore in 1974, and seized the French embassy in The Hague that same year and the United States and Swedish embassies in Kuala Lumpur in 1975. In 1977 the Japanese Red Army hijacked a Japan Airlines jet over India in a successful demand for a US$6 million ransom and the release of six inmates in Japanese prisons. Its activists developed close connections with international terrorist groups, including Palestinian liberation movements like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Japanese Red Army also had close ties with the Kim Il-Sung regime in North Korea. The group was tightly organized, and one scholar has suggested that its "managerial style" resembled that of major Japanese corporations. Following heavy criticism at home and abroad for the government's "caving in" to terrorists' demands, the authorities announced their intention to recall and reissue approximately 5.6 million valid Japanese passports to make hijacking more difficult. A special police unit was formed to keep track of the terrorist group, and tight airport security measures were instigated. Despite issuing regular threats, the Japanese Red Army was relatively inactive in the 1980s. In 1990 its members were reported to be in North Korea and Lebanon undergoing further training and were available as mercenaries to promote various political causes. Fusako Shigenobu, the founder and leader, was arrested in Osaka, Japan in November 2000. Uyoku dantai Right-wing extremists were extremely diverse. In 1989 there were 800 such groups with about 120,000 members altogether. By police count, however, only about fifty groups and 23,000 individuals were considered active. Right-wing extremists indulged in a heady romanticism with strong links to the prewar period. They tended to be fascinated with the macho charisma of blood, sweat, and steel, and they promoted (like many nonradical groups) traditional samurai values as the antidote to the spiritual ills of postwar Japan. Their preference for violent direct action rather than words reflected the example of the militarist extremists of the 1930s and the heroic "men of strong will" of the late Tokugawa period of the 1850s and 1860s. The modern right-wing extremists demanded an end to the postwar "system of dependence" on