Narita raid

Press, 27 May 1978, Page 8

Narita raid

NZPA-Reuter Narita The police stepped up I their guard on foreign air- * line facilities at Tokyo’s new I Narita airport yesterday I after a fire-bomb attack by masked men on a Korean; Air Lines staff dormitory. The police said they had! increased the number of pat-j rols around the offices and /buildings after the attack on* 'Thursday night on the seven-storey building by* i* radical Leftist opponents of the airport. All the attackers vanished under cover of darkness from the seven-storey dor-; i mitory, a solitary building i surrounded by farm fields, after setting fire to a stolen car they had used in the : raid, police said. ; One room was demolished' las the petrol bombs ignited,* Hand a stolen car was set bn!, (fire, but nobody was injured. 1 i Several hundred plain- ' !clothes policemen mingled, ■ with passengers, while more * '•than 7000 riot police “guarded the heavily-fortified 'airport, which began accept--1 ing flights last week-end. ’ More than 4000 police :also guarded 72 km of railwav frack as trains carrying, jet fuel were being brought to Narita from the Pacific port of Kashima for the second successive day. The police fear that the I tanker trains could be the *

target of attacks by the Japanese Red Army guerrilla organisation, one of the world’s most violent Leftwing groups. Police sources said they believed the Red Army might be prompted to enter the fray now that the Japanese Government is apparently running the airport successfully in spite of furious and often violent ' local protests. The fuel has to be shipped; to the airport because local presidents have so far refused permission for the construction of a pipeline, fearing explosions from possible sabotage attempts. At least five people have ibeen killed and more than 8000 injured since 1966 in riots involving radicals, who are supporting local farmers, and police.