Iparretarrak
Sign in to saveIparretarrak (meaning "the Northerners" in Basque), commonly known as IK, was a Basque nationalist paramilitary organization operating in the French Basque Country, founded in 1973 by Philippe Bidart and other Basque activists. 1982 was their most active year, with 32 attacks. IK mostly targeted tourist developments but also assassinated a number of French police personnel. In 1984, they attacked the Biarritz airport before the arrival of the French president François Mitterrand, who was accused by IK of "not respecting the Basque culture and national rights".
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Iparretarrak (meaning "the Northerners" in Basque), commonly known as IK, was a Basque nationalist paramilitary organization operating in the French Basque Country, founded in 1973 by Philippe Bidart and other Basque activists. 1982 was their most active year, with 32 attacks. IK mostly targeted tourist developments but also assassinated a number of French police personnel. In 1984, they attacked the Biarritz airport before the arrival of the French president François Mitterrand, who was accused by IK of "not respecting the Basque culture and national rights".
Despite sharing the same goals and methods, it held an uneasy relation with ETA, a more powerful organization based in the Southern Basque Country, mostly because ETA has used the French Basque Country as a hideout and did not want to provoke the French Government in this regard.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Iparretarrak” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.