Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was a terrorist group formed in 1975 to force Turkey to admit its guilt for the Armenian genocide of 1915.

In 1915, the government of what is now Turkey engaged in a deliberate campaign to expel the Christian Armenian minority from their homes; this campaign resulted in an Armenian diaspora that continues to this day. The current Turkish government insists that this campaign was not a genocide, while Armenians contend that 1.5 million of their compatriots were massacred. ASALA's stated goals are to force the Turkish [Page 47]government to acknowledge the genocide, pay reparations, and support the creation of an Armenian state.

The group was founded in 1975 by Hagop Hagopian, a Lebanese-born Armenian who had become involved with Palestinian resistance groups in the early 1970s. Some sources claim that Hagopian was a ...