Introduction Movements Eras Organizations Index Contributions
About Organizations
Black Panther Party Black Liberation Army American Indian Movement FALN Weather Underground Earth Liberation Front Animal Liberation Front MOVE Republic of New Afrika Symbionese Liberation Army Los Macheteros United Freedom Front May 19th Communist Organization Young Lords George Jackson Brigade Students for a Democratic Society Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Industrial Workers of the World Communist Party USA Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Brown Berets Socialist Workers Party African People's Socialist Party Nation of Islam
About Los Macheteros
Founding & Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (1976) The Sabana Seca Ambush (1979) The Muñiz Air National Guard Base Raid (1981) The Wells Fargo Robbery & Víctor Gerena (1983) The 1985 Island Raids & the Hartford 15 Trials The FBI Killing of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (2005) The Last Prosecutions: the González Claudio Brothers (2008–2012)
THE MUñIZ AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE RAID (1981)

In the early hours of January 12, 1981, a Machetero commando infiltrated Muñiz Air National Guard Base at San Juan's international airport and blew up eleven jet aircraft — destroying eight A-7 Corsair fighters and a Phantom outright — causing some $45 million in damage in a few minutes, without casualties. It was among the costliest attacks ever carried out on a U.S. military installation in peacetime.

The raid, announced as a protest against the use of Puerto Rico as a U.S. military platform and against the Vieques bombing range, humiliated base security and made the tiny organization internationally known. It also concentrated federal attention: the FBI's San Juan field office and a Connecticut grand jury began building the conspiracy architecture that would produce the mass arrests of 1985.