Monte Melkonian

Monte Melkonian was an Armenian-American revolutionary, left-wing nationalist militant, and national hero. He was the leader of an offshoot of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) in the 1980s and was a commander in the Armenian army in Nagorno-Karabakh fighting Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s. Melkonian left the United States and arrived in Iran in 1978 during the beginning of the 1979 Revolution, taking part in demonstrations against the Shah. Following the collapse of the Shah's monarchy, he traveled to Lebanon during the height of the civil war and served in an Armenian militia group in the Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud. In ASALA, he took part in the assassinations of several Turkish diplomats in Europe during the early to mid-1980s. He planned the 1981 Turkish consulate attack in Paris. He was later arrested and sent to prison in France. In 1989, he was released and in the following year, acquired a visa to travel to Armenia.