The gunmen, two women and three men, entered the multi-story building on Jalan Ampang at 11:15 a.m. They seized the offices of the Swedish embassy and the United States consulate. Their specific targets were the U.S. Consul, Robert Stebbins, and the Swedish Chargé d’affaires, Fredrik Bergenstråhle. They barricaded themselves with 52 hostages. Their demand was precise: the release of seven JRA members held in Japanese prisons, including founder Fusako Shigenobu. They threatened to blow up the building with explosives if their terms were not met.
The Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Takeo Miki, capitulated. It released five of the seven prisoners. A Japan Air Lines DC-8 jet flew the five from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur. On August 7, the five gunmen and their five freed comrades boarded the plane with the released hostages. They flew to Dubai, refueled under the watch of local authorities, and then continued to Benghazi, Libya. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government, a known patron of militant groups, granted them sanctuary. All hostages were freed unharmed.
The event was a stark demonstration of transnational terrorism’s new theater. A Japanese Marxist group could attack a building in Malaysia to pressure the government of Japan, using American and Swedish citizens as leverage, with a Middle Eastern state as the final safe haven. It showcased the potent tactic of hostage-taking for prisoner exchange, a blueprint for future sieges at embassies and airports.
This obscure siege had direct consequences. It humiliated the Japanese government and exposed the vulnerability of diplomatic posts worldwide. It also fragmented the JRA. The five freed prisoners, arriving in Libya, found their revolutionary ideals clashing with the reality of life in Gaddafi’s camps. Some later drifted away from the organization. The operation was a tactical success that contributed to the group’s long-term strategic incoherence, a paradox common to the era’s militant cells.