False flag
Encyclopedia
False flag operations are covert operation
s designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war
and counter-insurgency
operations, and can be used in peace-time.
, provided the false flag was lowered and the national flag raised before engaging in battle. Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ship
s, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. One of the most notable examples was in World War II
when the German commerce raider Kormoran
, disguised as a Dutch
merchant ship, surprised and sank the Australia
n light cruiser HMAS Sydney
in 1941, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. The Kormoran was also fatally crippled in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.
The British used a Kriegsmarine Ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code
book. The old destroyer Campbeltown
, which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications, cutting the ship's funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German Möwe-class destroyer. The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.
regulates:
This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that "To a great extent, [the draft rules] correspond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea", and as such these two non controversial articles were already part of customary law.
at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif
, Otto Skorzeny
, by the military court at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the court did not find Skorzeny guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. He had passed on to his men the warning of German legal experts, that if they fought in American uniforms, they would be breaking the laws of war
, but they probably were not doing so just by wearing the uniform. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement on it. In the transcript of the trial it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on October 1, 1940, under the title "Rules of Land Warfare", says:
The outcome of the trial has been codified in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I
):
Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy
Article 38.-Recognized emblems
Article 39.-Emblems of nationality
, Japanese
officers fabricated a pretext for annexing Manchuria
by blowing up a section of railway. Six years later they falsely claimed the kidnapping of one of their soldiers in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident
as an excuse to invade China proper
.
In the Gleiwitz incident
on August 31, 1939, Reinhard Heydrich
made use of fabricated evidence of a Polish
attack against Germany
to mobilize German public opinion and to fabricate a false justification for a war with Poland
. This, along with other false flag operations in Operation Himmler
, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe
.
In the Kassa attack on June 26, 1941, the city
of Kassa
, today Košice (Slovakia
), then a part of Hungary was bombed by three unidentified planes of apparently Soviet origin . This attack became the pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war
on the Soviet Union
.
In 1953, the U.S. and British-orchestrated Operation Ajax
used false-flag and propaganda
operations against the formerly democratically elected leader of Iran
, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Information regarding the CIA-sponsored coup d'etat
has been largely declassified and is available in the CIA archives.
The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods
plot by the U.S. Department of Defense
for a war with Cuba
involved scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs. These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro
's communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy
. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in the mid-1990's. Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford
or to engage in active operations, in particular assassination
s of important enemies. However, they usually involve both, as the risks of exposure rapidly increase with time and intelligence gathering eventually leads to violent confrontation. Pseudo-operations may be directed by military or police forces, or both. Police forces are usually best suited to intelligence tasks; however, military provide the structure needed to back up such pseudo-ops with military response forces. According to US military expert Lawrence Cline (2005), "the teams typically have been controlled by police services, but this largely was due to the weaknesses in the respective military intelligence systems."
The State Political Directorate
(OGPU) of the Soviet Union
set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926. During Operation Trust, they used loose networks of White Army supporters and extended them, creating the pseudo-"Monarchist Union of Central Russia" (MUCR) in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks.
An example of a successful assassination was United States Marine Sergeant
Herman H. Hanneken
leading a patrol of his Haiti
an Gendarmerie
disguised as enemy guerrillas in 1919. The Patrol successfully passed several enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla leader Charlemagne Péralte
near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord
. Hanneken was awarded the Medal of Honor
and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed.
During the Mau Mau uprising
in the 1950s, captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960 Frank Kitson
, (who was later involved in the Northern Irish conflict and is now a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-gangs, an account of his experiences with the technique in Kenya
; information included how to counter gangs and measures of deception, including the use of defectors, which brought the issue a wider audience.
Another example of combined police and military oversight of pseudo-operations include the Selous Scouts
in former country Rhodesia
(current Zimbabwe
), governed by white minority rule until 1980. The Selous Scouts were formed at the beginning of Operation Hurricane
, in November 1973, by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Ronald Reid-Daly
. As all Special Forces in Rhodesia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant General Peter Walls
. The Selous Scouts were originally composed of 120 members, with all officers being white and the highest rank initially available for Africans
being colour sergeant
. They succeeded in turning approximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Special Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500 members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to offensive actions, including the attempted assassination of ZIPRA
leader Joshua Nkomo
in Zambia
. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.
Some offensive operations attracted international condemnation, in particular the Selous Scouts' raid on a ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) camp at Nyadzonya Pungwe, Mozambique
in August 1976. ZANLA was then led by Josiah Tongogara
. Using Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozambique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in the camp, the camp was registered as a refugee camp
by the United Nations
(UN). Even according to Reid-Daly, most of those killed were unarmed guerrillas standing in formation for a parade. The camp hospital was also set ablaze by the rounds fired by the Scouts, killing all patients. According to David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, who visited the camp shortly before the raid, it was only a refugee camp that did not host any guerrillas. It was staged for UN approval.
According to a 1978 study by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, 68% of all insurgent deaths inside Rhodesia
could be attributed to the Selous Scouts, who were disbanded in 1980.
If the action is a police action, then these tactics would fall within the laws of the state initiating the pseudo, but if such actions are taken in a civil war
or during a belligerent military occupation then those who participate in such actions would not be privileged belligerents. The principle of plausible deniability
is usually applied for pseudo-teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, or "the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgent
-controlled areas."
Pseudo Operations should be distinguished, notes Cline, from the more common police
or intelligence infiltration
of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case, infiltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from organized units, usually military or paramilitary
. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."
In espionage
the term "false flag" describes the recruiting of agents by operatives posing as representatives of a cause the prospective agents are sympathetic to, or even the agents' own government. For example, during the Cold War
, several female West German
civil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of the East German Stasi
intelligence service, pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the Stasi agents were also described as "Romeos
," indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate their targets, making this operation a combination of the false flag and "honey trap" techniques).
The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in one's own service, by having someone approach the suspect and pose as an agent of the enemy. Earl Edwin Pitts
, a 13-year veteran of the FBI and an attorney, was caught when he was approached by FBI agents posing as Russian agents.
British intelligence officials in World War II allowed double agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassified documents. The documents stated the agents took precautions to ensure they did not cause serious damage. One of the documents released also stated: "It should be recognised that friends as well as enemies must be completely deceived."
against two minibuses driving along in a volatile area right on the border between Abkhazia
and the republic of Georgia
. The buses were carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day.
The country had been experiencing internal political turmoil for the last year, and in an attempt to calm the situation, president Mikheil Saakashvili
moved forward both presidential and parliamentary elections. However the presidential election in January that year was strongly contested, with hundreds of thousands attending protest rallies. When the parliamentary election came up in May, the mood was still tense.
On mid day May 21 the two minibuses came under attack with small arms and grenades, and though there were no casualties, three people were taken to a hospital in Zugdidi, where president Saakashvili later arrived and was filmed by TV at the patients's bedside.
In his comments on TV, which dominated the news during election day, Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it. This provided for a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation's attention on an external enemy, thereby leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election.
However a United Nations investigation later found, based on empty cartridges and the position of traces left by grenade launchers on the ground, that the attack had originated from a patch of land under control of Georgians and with weapons used by Georgian forces, indicating that the attack had been staged.
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.
campaigns (see Astroturfing
). Telemarketing
firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be a market research
firm (referred to as "sugging
"). In some rare cases, members of an unsuccessful business will destroy some of their own property to conceal an unrelated crime (e.g. safety violations, embezzlement
, etc.) but make it appear as though the destruction was done by a rival company.
” for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidate's knowledge. The Canuck letter
is an example of one candidate creating a false document and attributing it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit that candidate.
In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire
and New Jersey
after blog
comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP address
of paid staffers for that candidate's opponent.
On February 19, 2011, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor Carlos Lam sent a private email to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suggesting that he run a "'false flag' operation" to counter the protests
against Walker's proposed restrictions on public employees' collective bargaining
rights.
"If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions," read the email. It went on to say that the effort "would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions." The press had acquired a court order to access all of Walker's emails and Lam's email was exposed. At first, Lam vehemently denied it, but eventually admitted it and resigned.
In retaliation for writing The Scandal of Scientology
, the Church of Scientology
stole stationery from author Paulette Cooper
's home and then used that stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed to a Scientology office. The Guardian's Office also had a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known as Operation Freakout
, but several Scientology operatives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan failed.
, starting in the mid-1994. Death squad
s composed of DRS (Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the OJAL
(Organisation of Young Free Algerians) or the OSSRA (Secret Organisation for the safeguard of the Algerian Republic) According to Roger Faligot
and Pascal Kropp (1999), the OJAL was reminiscent of "the Organization of the French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists created in December 1956 by the Direction de la surveillance du territoire
(Territorial Surveillance Directorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise."
The Russian apartment bombings
in the Russian cities of Buynaksk
, Moscow
and Volgodonsk
in September 1999 which killed nearly 300 people, was described by Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko
, David Satter
, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky
, Anna Politkovskaya
, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov
, investigator Mikhail Trepashkin
, Russian politician Alexander Lebed as a false flag terrorist attack coordinated by the Federal Security Service, the main domestic security
agency of the Russian Federation.
On the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire
. At the urging of Hitler, Hindenburg responded the next day by issuing an emergency decree "for the Protection of the people and the State," which stated: "Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed" suspending key provisions of the German Weimar Constitution
. The question of who actually started the Reichstag fire is still often considered unknown and occasionally debated (while Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe
was convicted of the crime and executed, his conviction is not considered credible by many).
explained that Ignacio Novo Sampol, member of CORU, an anti-Castro organization, had agreed to commit the Cuban Nationalist Movement in the kidnapping, in Buenos Aires, of a president of a Dutch bank. The abduction, organized by civilian SIDE
agents, the Argentine intelligence agency, was to obtain a ransom. Townley said that Novo Sampol had provided six thousand dollars from the Cuban Nationalist Movement, forwarded to the civilian SIDE agents to pay for the preparation expenses of the kidnapping. After returning to the US, Novo Sampol sent Townley a stock of paper, used to print pamphlets in the name of "Grupo Rojo" (Red Group), an imaginary Argentine Marxist terrorist organization, which was to claim credit for the kidnapping of the Dutch banker. Townley declared that the pamphlets were distributed in Mendoza
and Córdoba
in relation with false flag bombings perpetrated by SIDE agents, which had as their aim to accredit the existence of the fake Grupo Rojo. However, the SIDE agents procrastinated too much, and the kidnapping ultimately was not carried out.
Examples:
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
s designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
and counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
operations, and can be used in peace-time.
Naval warfare
This practice was considered acceptable in naval warfareNaval warfare
Naval warfare is combat in and on seas, oceans, or any other major bodies of water such as large lakes and wide rivers.-History:Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land warfare would seem, initially, to be irrelevant and entirely removed from warfare on the open ocean,...
, provided the false flag was lowered and the national flag raised before engaging in battle. Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ship
Q-ship
Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, Decoy Vessels, Special Service Ships, or Mystery Ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them...
s, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. One of the most notable examples was in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when the German commerce raider Kormoran
German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran
The German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran was a Kriegsmarine merchant raider of World War II. Originally the merchant vessel Steiermark, the ship was acquired by the Kriegsmarine following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider...
, disguised as a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
merchant ship, surprised and sank the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n light cruiser HMAS Sydney
HMAS Sydney (1934)
HMAS Sydney , named for the Australian city of Sydney, was one of three Modified Leander class light cruisers operated by the Royal Australian Navy...
in 1941, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. The Kormoran was also fatally crippled in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.
The British used a Kriegsmarine Ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
book. The old destroyer Campbeltown
HMS Campbeltown (I42)
HMS Campbeltown was a "Town"-class destroyer of the Royal Navy during the Second World War. She was originally an American destroyer , and, like many other obsolescent U.S. Navy destroyers, she was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1940 as part of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. Campbeltown...
, which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications, cutting the ship's funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German Möwe-class destroyer. The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.
Air warfare
In December 1922-February 1923, Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare, drafted by a commission of jurists at the HagueThe Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
regulates:
- Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exterior mark indicating its nationality and its military character.
- Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forbidden.
This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that "To a great extent, [the draft rules] correspond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea", and as such these two non controversial articles were already part of customary law.
Land warfare
In land warfare, the use of a false flag is similar to that of naval warfare. The most widespread assumption is that this practice was first established under international humanitarian lawInternational humanitarian law
International humanitarian law , often referred to as the laws of war, the laws and customs of war or the law of armed conflict, is the legal corpus that comprises "the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, as well as subsequent treaties, case law, and customary international law." It...
at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif
Operation Greif
Operation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed...
, Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
, by the military court at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the court did not find Skorzeny guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. He had passed on to his men the warning of German legal experts, that if they fought in American uniforms, they would be breaking the laws of war
Laws of war
The law of war is a body of law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct...
, but they probably were not doing so just by wearing the uniform. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement on it. In the transcript of the trial it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on October 1, 1940, under the title "Rules of Land Warfare", says:
-
- "National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse - in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded".
- Also The American Soldiers' Handbook, was quoted by Defense Counsel and says:
- "The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins".
The outcome of the trial has been codified in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I
Protocol I
Protocol I is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts. It reaffirms the international laws of the original Geneva Conventions of 1949, but adds clarifications and new provisions to accommodate developments in modern...
):
Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy
Perfidy
In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception, in which one side promises to act in good faith with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed himself .The practice is specifically prohibited under the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the...
- 1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international lawInternational lawPublic international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. - 2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.
Article 38.-Recognized emblems
- 1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property.
- 2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, except as authorized by that Organization.
Article 39.-Emblems of nationality
- 1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
- 2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations.
- 3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1 ( d ), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.
As pretexts for war
In the 1931 Mukden incidentMukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event that was engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China known as Manchuria in 1931....
, Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
officers fabricated a pretext for annexing Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
by blowing up a section of railway. Six years later they falsely claimed the kidnapping of one of their soldiers in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident
Marco Polo Bridge Incident
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident was a battle between the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army, often used as the marker for the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War .The eleven-arch granite bridge, Lugouqiao, is an architecturally significant structure,...
as an excuse to invade China proper
China proper
China proper or Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Qing Dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as many administrative, cultural, and linguistic shifts have occurred in Chinese history...
.
In the Gleiwitz incident
Gleiwitz incident
The Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany on the eve of World War II in Europe....
on August 31, 1939, Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
made use of fabricated evidence of a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
attack against Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to mobilize German public opinion and to fabricate a false justification for a war with Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
. This, along with other false flag operations in Operation Himmler
Operation Himmler
Operation Himmler was a Nazi Germany false flag project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland...
, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe
European Theatre of World War II
The European Theatre of World War II was a huge area of heavy fighting across Europe from Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 until the end of the war with the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945...
.
In the Kassa attack on June 26, 1941, the city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
of Kassa
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
, today Košice (Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
), then a part of Hungary was bombed by three unidentified planes of apparently Soviet origin . This attack became the pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war
Declaration of war
A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...
on the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
In 1953, the U.S. and British-orchestrated Operation Ajax
Operation Ajax
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project...
used false-flag and propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
operations against the formerly democratically elected leader of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Information regarding the CIA-sponsored coup d'etat
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
has been largely declassified and is available in the CIA archives.
The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency , or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere...
plot by the U.S. Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
for a war with Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
involved scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs. These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
's communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in the mid-1990's. Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford
James Bamford
V. James Bamford is an American bestselling author and journalist who writes about United States intelligence agencies, most notably the National Security Agency.-Biography:...
Pseudo-operations
Pseudo-operations are those in which forces of one power disguise themselves as enemy forces. For example, a state power may disguise teams of operatives as insurgents and, with the aid of defectors, infiltrate insurgent areas. The aim of such pseudo-operations may be to gather short or long-term intelligenceIntelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
or to engage in active operations, in particular assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s of important enemies. However, they usually involve both, as the risks of exposure rapidly increase with time and intelligence gathering eventually leads to violent confrontation. Pseudo-operations may be directed by military or police forces, or both. Police forces are usually best suited to intelligence tasks; however, military provide the structure needed to back up such pseudo-ops with military response forces. According to US military expert Lawrence Cline (2005), "the teams typically have been controlled by police services, but this largely was due to the weaknesses in the respective military intelligence systems."
The State Political Directorate
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
(OGPU) of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926. During Operation Trust, they used loose networks of White Army supporters and extended them, creating the pseudo-"Monarchist Union of Central Russia" (MUCR) in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks.
An example of a successful assassination was United States Marine Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
Herman H. Hanneken
Herman H. Hanneken
Herman Henry Hanneken was a United States Marine Corps officer and a recipient of the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor....
leading a patrol of his Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an Gendarmerie
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...
disguised as enemy guerrillas in 1919. The Patrol successfully passed several enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla leader Charlemagne Péralte
Charlemagne Péralte
Charlemagne Masséna Péralte was a Haitian nationalist leader who opposed the US Invasion of his country in 1915. Leading guerrilla fighters called the Cacos, he posed such a challenge to the US forces in Haiti that the occupying forces had to upgrade their presence in the country...
near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord
Grande-Rivière-du-Nord
Grande-Rivière-du-Nord is a municipality in the Grande-Rivière-du-Nord Arrondissement, in the Nord Department of Haiti. Jean-Jacques Dessalines was born there in 1758 on the Cormiers plantation....
. Hanneken was awarded the Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed.
During the Mau Mau uprising
Mau Mau Uprising
The Mau Mau Uprising was a military conflict that took place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960...
in the 1950s, captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960 Frank Kitson
Frank Kitson
General Sir Frank Edward Kitson GBE, KCB, MC and Bar, DL is a retired British Army officer and writer on military subjects, notably low intensity operations...
, (who was later involved in the Northern Irish conflict and is now a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-gangs, an account of his experiences with the technique in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
; information included how to counter gangs and measures of deception, including the use of defectors, which brought the issue a wider audience.
Another example of combined police and military oversight of pseudo-operations include the Selous Scouts
Selous Scouts
The Selous Scouts was a special forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army, which operated from 1973 until the introduction of majority rule in 1980. It was named after British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous , and their motto was pamwe chete, which, in the Shona language, roughly means "all...
in former country Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
(current Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
), governed by white minority rule until 1980. The Selous Scouts were formed at the beginning of Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane was the test of the first British atomic device on 3 October 1952. A plutonium implosion device was detonated in the lagoon between the Montebello Islands, Western Australia....
, in November 1973, by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Ronald Reid-Daly
Ronald Reid-Daly
Lieutenant Colonel Ronald "Ron" Francis Reid-Daly founded and commanded the elite Selous Scouts special forces unit that fought during the Rhodesian Bush War.-Career:...
. As all Special Forces in Rhodesia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant General Peter Walls
Peter Walls
Lieutenant General George Peter Walls MBE GLM served as the Commander of the Combined Operations Headquarters of the Military of Rhodesia, and later Zimbabwe, from 1977 until his retirement on 29 July 1980 during the Rhodesian Bush War...
. The Selous Scouts were originally composed of 120 members, with all officers being white and the highest rank initially available for Africans
African people
African people refers to natives, inhabitants, or citizen of Africa and to people of African descent.-Etymology:Many etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":...
being colour sergeant
Colour Sergeant
Colour sergeant or colour serjeant is a non-commissioned title in the Royal Marines and infantry regiments of the British Army, ranking above sergeant and below warrant officer class 2....
. They succeeded in turning approximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Special Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500 members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to offensive actions, including the attempted assassination of ZIPRA
ZIPRA
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army was the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, a political party in Rhodesia. It participated in the Second Chimurenga against white minority rule in the former Rhodesia....
leader Joshua Nkomo
Joshua Nkomo
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African People's Union and a member of the Kalanga tribe...
in Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.
Some offensive operations attracted international condemnation, in particular the Selous Scouts' raid on a ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) camp at Nyadzonya Pungwe, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
in August 1976. ZANLA was then led by Josiah Tongogara
Josiah Tongogara
Josiah Magama Tongogara was a commander of the ZANLA guerrilla army in Rhodesia. He attended the Lancaster House conference that led to Zimbabwe's independence and the end of white minority rule...
. Using Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozambique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in the camp, the camp was registered as a refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(UN). Even according to Reid-Daly, most of those killed were unarmed guerrillas standing in formation for a parade. The camp hospital was also set ablaze by the rounds fired by the Scouts, killing all patients. According to David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, who visited the camp shortly before the raid, it was only a refugee camp that did not host any guerrillas. It was staged for UN approval.
According to a 1978 study by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, 68% of all insurgent deaths inside Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
could be attributed to the Selous Scouts, who were disbanded in 1980.
If the action is a police action, then these tactics would fall within the laws of the state initiating the pseudo, but if such actions are taken in a civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
or during a belligerent military occupation then those who participate in such actions would not be privileged belligerents. The principle of plausible deniability
Plausible deniability
Plausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...
is usually applied for pseudo-teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, or "the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgent
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
-controlled areas."
Pseudo Operations should be distinguished, notes Cline, from the more common police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
or intelligence infiltration
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case, infiltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from organized units, usually military or paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."
Espionage
- See false flag penetrator.
In espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
the term "false flag" describes the recruiting of agents by operatives posing as representatives of a cause the prospective agents are sympathetic to, or even the agents' own government. For example, during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, several female West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
civil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of the East German Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
intelligence service, pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the Stasi agents were also described as "Romeos
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
," indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate their targets, making this operation a combination of the false flag and "honey trap" techniques).
The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in one's own service, by having someone approach the suspect and pose as an agent of the enemy. Earl Edwin Pitts
Earl Edwin Pitts
Earl Edwin Pitts is a former FBI special agent who, in 1996, was arrested at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Pitts was charged with several offenses, including spying for the Soviet Union and Russia...
, a 13-year veteran of the FBI and an attorney, was caught when he was approached by FBI agents posing as Russian agents.
British intelligence officials in World War II allowed double agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassified documents. The documents stated the agents took precautions to ensure they did not cause serious damage. One of the documents released also stated: "It should be recognised that friends as well as enemies must be completely deceived."
Elections
In 2008 there was a shooting2008 Khurcha incident
The 2008 Khurcha incident refers to the May 21 2008 attack on two minibuses in the Georgian village of Khurcha, near the ceasefire line with the internationally unrecognised Republic of Abkhazia. The buses were carrying Georgians on the way to vote at the parliamentary election which was underway...
against two minibuses driving along in a volatile area right on the border between Abkhazia
Abkhazia
Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...
and the republic of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
. The buses were carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day.
The country had been experiencing internal political turmoil for the last year, and in an attempt to calm the situation, president Mikheil Saakashvili
Mikheil Saakashvili
Mikheil Saakashvili is a Georgian politician, the third and current President of Georgia and leader of the United National Movement Party.Involved in the national politics since 1995, Saakashvili became president on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in a November 2003...
moved forward both presidential and parliamentary elections. However the presidential election in January that year was strongly contested, with hundreds of thousands attending protest rallies. When the parliamentary election came up in May, the mood was still tense.
On mid day May 21 the two minibuses came under attack with small arms and grenades, and though there were no casualties, three people were taken to a hospital in Zugdidi, where president Saakashvili later arrived and was filmed by TV at the patients's bedside.
In his comments on TV, which dominated the news during election day, Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it. This provided for a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation's attention on an external enemy, thereby leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election.
However a United Nations investigation later found, based on empty cartridges and the position of traces left by grenade launchers on the ground, that the attack had originated from a patch of land under control of Georgians and with weapons used by Georgian forces, indicating that the attack had been staged.
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.
Civilian usage
While false flag operations originate in warfare and government, they also can occur in civilian settings among certain factions, such as businesses, special interest groups, religions, political ideologies and campaigns for office.Businesses
In business and marketing, similar operations are being employed in some public relationsPublic relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaigns (see Astroturfing
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some...
). Telemarketing
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...
firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be a market research
Market research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
firm (referred to as "sugging
Sugging
Sugging is a market research industry term, meaning "selling under the guise of research". This behavior occurs when a product marketer falsely pretends to be a market researcher conducting a survey, when in reality they are simply trying to sell the product in question.Generally considered...
"). In some rare cases, members of an unsuccessful business will destroy some of their own property to conceal an unrelated crime (e.g. safety violations, embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
, etc.) but make it appear as though the destruction was done by a rival company.
Political campaigning
Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in various forms, including in person, print media and electronically in recent years. This can involve when supporters of one candidate pose as supporters of another, or act as “straw menStraw man
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions...
” for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidate's knowledge. The Canuck letter
Canuck Letter
The Canuck letter was a forged letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader, published February 24, 1972, two weeks before the New Hampshire primary of the 1972 United States presidential election. It implied that Senator Edmund Muskie, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential...
is an example of one candidate creating a false document and attributing it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit that candidate.
In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
after blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
of paid staffers for that candidate's opponent.
On February 19, 2011, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor Carlos Lam sent a private email to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suggesting that he run a "'false flag' operation" to counter the protests
2011 Wisconsin protests
The 2011 Wisconsin protests were a series of demonstrations in the state of Wisconsin in the United States beginning in February involving at its zenith as many as 100,000 protestors opposing the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill. Subsequently, anti-tax activists and other conservatives, including tea...
against Walker's proposed restrictions on public employees' collective bargaining
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions...
rights.
"If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions," read the email. It went on to say that the effort "would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions." The press had acquired a court order to access all of Walker's emails and Lam's email was exposed. At first, Lam vehemently denied it, but eventually admitted it and resigned.
Ideological
Political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false flag tactics. This can be done to discredit or implicate rival groups, create the appearance of enemies when none exist, or create the illusion of organized and directed opposition when in truth, the ideology is simply unpopular with society.The Scandal of Scientology
The Scandal of Scientology is a critical exposé book about the Church of Scientology, written by Paulette Cooper and published by Tower Publications, in 1971....
, the Church of Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
stole stationery from author Paulette Cooper
Paulette Cooper
Paulette Marcia Cooper is an American author who is best known for activism against the Church of Scientology and the harassment she suffered as a result. Cooper's books have sold close to a half a million copies.-Early life:...
's home and then used that stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed to a Scientology office. The Guardian's Office also had a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known as Operation Freakout
Operation Freakout
Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the US author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a mental institution...
, but several Scientology operatives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan failed.
Terrorism
False flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil warAlgerian Civil War
The Algerian Civil War was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. It is estimated to have cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives, in a population of about 25,010,000 in 1990 and 31,193,917 in 2000.More than 70 journalists were...
, starting in the mid-1994. Death squad
Death squad
A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...
s composed of DRS (Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
The Department of Intelligence and Security is the Algerian state intelligence service. Its existence dates back to the struggle for independence.-Formation:...
) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the OJAL
Organisation of Young Free Algerians
The Organization of Young Free Algerians claimed credit for various attacks against civilian Islamist sympathisers during the Algerian Civil War, claiming to be a pro-government armed group. It was active mainly in 1994 and 1995...
(Organisation of Young Free Algerians) or the OSSRA (Secret Organisation for the safeguard of the Algerian Republic) According to Roger Faligot
Roger Faligot
Roger Faligot is a French journalist, who started working in Ireland in 1973 before working as freelance investigative journalist for British, Parisian or foreign newspapers and magazines . Considered as one of the best French specialist of Ireland, he was special correspondent of the weekly The...
and Pascal Kropp (1999), the OJAL was reminiscent of "the Organization of the French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists created in December 1956 by the Direction de la surveillance du territoire
Direction de la surveillance du territoire
The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference...
(Territorial Surveillance Directorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise."
The Russian apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...
in the Russian cities of Buynaksk
Buynaksk
Buynaksk is a town in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, located at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus on the Shura-Ozen River, southwest of the republic's capital Makhachkala. Population: 40,000 ....
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Volgodonsk
Volgodonsk
Volgodonsk is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located in the eastern part of the oblast on the west bank of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir. Population: 28,000 .-History:...
in September 1999 which killed nearly 300 people, was described by Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
, David Satter
David Satter
David Satter is a former Moscow correspondent and expert on Russia and the Soviet Union who wrote books about the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of post-Soviet Russia.-Life and career:...
, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky
Vladimir Pribylovsky
Vladimir Valerianovich Pribylovsky is a Russian historian, journalist and human rights advocate opposed to current Russian authorities.-Biography:...
, Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...
, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov
Andrei Nekrasov
Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov is a Russian film and TV director from Saint Petersburg.Andrei Nekrasov studied acting and directing at the State Institute for Theater and Film in his native Saint Petersburg. He studied comparative literature and philosophy at the University of Paris, taking a master's...
, investigator Mikhail Trepashkin
Mikhail Trepashkin
Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin, is a Moscow attorney and former FSB colonel who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 – the atrocities that followed Dagestan war and were one of the triggers for the Second Chechen...
, Russian politician Alexander Lebed as a false flag terrorist attack coordinated by the Federal Security Service, the main domestic security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
agency of the Russian Federation.
On the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
. At the urging of Hitler, Hindenburg responded the next day by issuing an emergency decree "for the Protection of the people and the State," which stated: "Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed" suspending key provisions of the German Weimar Constitution
Weimar constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...
. The question of who actually started the Reichstag fire is still often considered unknown and occasionally debated (while Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe was a Dutch council communist convicted of, and controversially executed for, setting fire to the German Reichstag building on February 27, 1933, an event known as the Reichstag fire. ....
was convicted of the crime and executed, his conviction is not considered credible by many).
Dirty War
During a 1981 interview whose contents were revealed by documents declassified by the CIA in 2000, former CIA and DINA agent Michael TownleyMichael Townley
Michael Vernon Townley is a US citizen currently living in the United States under terms of the federal witness protection program. A Central Intelligence Agency agent and operative of the Chilean secret police, DINA, Townley confessed, was convicted, and served 62 months in prison in the United...
explained that Ignacio Novo Sampol, member of CORU, an anti-Castro organization, had agreed to commit the Cuban Nationalist Movement in the kidnapping, in Buenos Aires, of a president of a Dutch bank. The abduction, organized by civilian SIDE
Side
Side was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, in the region of Pamphylia, in what is now Antalya province, on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey...
agents, the Argentine intelligence agency, was to obtain a ransom. Townley said that Novo Sampol had provided six thousand dollars from the Cuban Nationalist Movement, forwarded to the civilian SIDE agents to pay for the preparation expenses of the kidnapping. After returning to the US, Novo Sampol sent Townley a stock of paper, used to print pamphlets in the name of "Grupo Rojo" (Red Group), an imaginary Argentine Marxist terrorist organization, which was to claim credit for the kidnapping of the Dutch banker. Townley declared that the pamphlets were distributed in Mendoza
Mendoza, Argentina
Mendoza is the capital city of Mendoza Province, in Argentina. It is located in the northern-central part of the province, in a region of foothills and high plains, on the eastern side of the Andes. As of the , Mendoza's population was 110,993...
and Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
in relation with false flag bombings perpetrated by SIDE agents, which had as their aim to accredit the existence of the fake Grupo Rojo. However, the SIDE agents procrastinated too much, and the kidnapping ultimately was not carried out.
See also
Concepts:- Black propagandaBlack propagandaBlack propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...
- Casus belliCasus belliis a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
- Covert operationCovert operationA covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
- Front organizationFront organizationA front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
- Inside jobInside jobInside job refers to a crime committed by a person with a position of trust, such as insider trading.Inside job may also refer to:* Inside Job , a 2005 novella by Connie Willis* Inside Job , a 2000 studio album by Don Henley...
- Joe jobJoe jobA joe job is a spamming technique that sends out unsolicited e-mails using spoofed sender data. Early joe jobs aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the apparent sender or inducing the recipients to take action against him , but they are now typically used by commercial spammers to conceal the true...
, a similar online concept - Mimicry
- State terrorismState terrorismState terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...
Examples:
- Bloed, Bodem, Eer en TrouwBloed, Bodem, Eer en TrouwBloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw is a Flemish neo-Nazi group, created in 2004 from a splinter of the Flemish branch of the international Nazi skinhead organization Blood & Honour.- Activities :...
(Flemish neo-Nazi group preparing false flag attacks) - Bologna massacreBologna massacreThe Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing of the Central Station at Bologna, Italy, on the morning of Saturday, 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200. The attack has been materially attributed to the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari...
- Canuck letterCanuck LetterThe Canuck letter was a forged letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader, published February 24, 1972, two weeks before the New Hampshire primary of the 1972 United States presidential election. It implied that Senator Edmund Muskie, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential...
- Celle HoleCelle HoleCelle Hole is a breach in the outer wall of the prison of Celle, Germany. First used on July 25, 1978, the name was part of a campaign by one of the West German secret services and the GSG 9 in an attempt to lay blame on the Red Army Faction, West Germany's most active and prominent left-wing...
- CIA Operation AjaxOperation AjaxThe 1953 Iranian coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project...
(USA overthrowing of Mohammed Mossadeq, Prime Minister of Iran, in 1953) - CIA Operation NorthwoodsOperation NorthwoodsOperation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency , or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere...
was a Plan to blame CubaCubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
for a Terrorist attack in order to get a pretext for 'justified' War of aggressionWar of aggressionA war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
after USA funded and organized failed Terrorist attack known as CIA Operation Mongoose. - CIA PBSUCCESS ([USA]) Operation for overthrowing the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954
- CIA Project Cherry (USA non-stop assassination project to kill Norodom SihanoukNorodom SihanoukNorodom Sihanouk regular script was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni...
, Prince, and later King of CambodiaCambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
) - Gleiwitz incidentGleiwitz incidentThe Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany on the eve of World War II in Europe....
- 3rd Reich Nazis Operation HimmlerOperation HimmlerOperation Himmler was a Nazi Germany false flag project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland...
in order to get pretext for 'justified' war of aggressionWar of aggressionA war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
against PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
with USSR day after that - named Fall Weiß - Kommandoverband Jaguar German army unit conducting deep reconnaissance in Soviet uniforms
- Lavon AffairLavon AffairThe Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation, a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and...
Israeli attempt to plant bombs in Western targets in Egypt, in blaming Arab elements - Marxist-Leninist Party of the NetherlandsMarxist-Leninist Party of the NetherlandsThe Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands was a fake pro-China communist party in the Netherlands set up by the Dutch secret service BVD to develop contacts with the Chinese government for espionage purposes. It existed from 1968 to the early 1990s...
(fake party set up by the Dutch security service) - Masada Action and Defense Movement ("Zionist" group bombing Arab targets in France, really French white supremacists)
- Operation Jaque
- Reichstag FireReichstag fireThe Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
, which led to the Reichstag Fire DecreeReichstag Fire DecreeThe Reichstag Fire Decree is the common name of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg in direct response to the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German...
which suspended the Weimar ConstitutionWeimar constitutionThe Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...
until the end of the Third Reich - Shelling of MainilaShelling of MainilaThe Shelling of Mainila was a military incident on November 26, 1939, where the Soviet Union's Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila , declared that the fire originated from Finland across a nearby border and claimed losses in personnel...
by Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and USSR in order to get pretext for 'justified' war of aggressionWar of aggressionA war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
named Winter WarWinter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty... - SISSecret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
(MI6) Operation Boot (UKUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Operation for overthrowing of Mohammed Mossadeq, Prime Minister of Iran, in 1953 with Americans) - Special Activities DivisionSpecial Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
- The Plaza Miranda BombingsHistory of the Philippines (1965-1986)This article covers the history of the Philippines during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos. The Marcos era includes the final years of the Third Republic and the entirety of the Fourth Republic .-Marcos Administration :...
in the PhilippinesPhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, which led to Ferdinand MarcosFerdinand MarcosFerdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino leader and an authoritarian President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate...
's suspension of the writ of habeas corpusHabeas corpusis a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
. - The strategy of tensionStrategy of tensionThe strategy of tension is a theory that describes how to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions....
in Italy during the 1970s, when right-wing Italian, Spanish, Greek, and CIA agents caused various terrorist acts in ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, which were publicly laid to Communist terrorist groups that were actually fakes, and to the Red BrigadesRed BrigadesThe Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
who were actually innocent of these particular crimes