Monte Melkonian (Armenian: Մոնթէ Մելքոնեան;[b] 25 November 1957 – 12 June 1993) was an Armenian-American revolutionary[1] and left-wing nationalist militant.

He took part in demonstrations against Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and subsequently travelled to Lebanon to serve with a Beirut-based Armenian militia fighting in the Lebanese Civil War.

Prior to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, during which he commanded an estimated 4,000 Armenian troops, Melkonian had no official service record in any country's armed forces.

Over the course of his military career, Melkonian had adopted a number of aliases, including "Abu Sindi," "Timothy Sean McCormack," and "Saro.

He excelled in his courses and participated in a study abroad program in East Asia, visiting Vietnam and Japan, where he learned local customs and picked up on some of the language.

[15][16] After his stint abroad, he returned to the US and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley with a Regents Scholarship, majoring in ancient Asian history and Archaeology.

He helped organize a teachers' strike at his school in Tehran, and was in the vicinity of Jaleh Square when the Shah's troops opened fire on protesters, killing and injuring many.

In the fall of 1978, Melkonian made his way to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in time to participate in the defence of the Armenian quarter against the right-wing Phalange forces.

Melkonian also shot the passengers in the front and back seats who were obscured by darkly tinted window glass, believing them to be other diplomats.

In November 1981, French police arrested and imprisoned a young, suspected criminal carrying a Cypriot passport bearing the name "Dimitri Georgiu".

Following the detonation of several bombs in Paris aimed at gaining his release, "Georgiu" was returned to Lebanon where he revealed his identity as Monte Melkonian.

[citation needed] In mid-July 1983, ASALA violently split into two factions, one opposed to the group's despotic leader, whose nom de guerre was Hagop Hagopian, and another supporting him.

Although the lines of fissure had been deepening over the course of several years, the shooting of Hagopian's two closest aides at a military camp in Lebanon finally led to the open breach.

As a result of this action, however, Hagopian took revenge by personally torturing and executing two of Melkonian's dearest comrades, Garlen Ananian and Aram Vartanian.

After testifying secretly for the defence in the trial of Armenian militant and accused bank robber Levon Minassian, he was arrested in Paris in November 1985 and sentenced to six years in prison for possession of falsified papers and carrying an illegal handgun.

During his first 8 months in Armenia, Melkonian worked in the Armenian Academy of Sciences, where he prepared an archaeological research monograph on Urartian cave tombs, which was posthumously published in 1995.

New political forces bent on dismantling the Soviet Union were taking Armenia in a direction that Melkonian believed was bound to exacerbate the crisis and produce more problems.

"[19] Under these circumstances, it quickly became clear to Melkonian that, for better or for worse, the Soviet Union had no future and the coming years would be perilous ones for the Armenian people.

Upon his arrival the changes were immediately felt: civilians started feeling more secure and at peace as Azeri armies were pushed back and were finding it increasingly difficult to shell Martuni's residential areas with GRAD missiles.

[citation needed] In April 1993, Melkonian was one of the chief military strategists who planned and led the operation to fight Azeri fighters and capture the region of Kalbajar of Azerbaijan which lies between Armenia and the former NKAO.

[2] Raymond Bonner wrote in 1993 that Melkonian had charisma and discipline, which is why he "rapidly became the most highly regarded commander in the Karabakh War.

Marsden adds that in the 1980s his ideology came into conflict with a growing nationalism: "With ever greater difficulty, he squeezed the Armenian question into the context of left-wing orthodoxy, believing for instance that Armenia's independence from the Soviet Union would be a terrible error.

[48] In the 1980s, while in a French prison, he called for the creation of a guerrilla force in eastern Turkey which would unite Kurdish rebels, left-wing Turks, and Armenian revolutionaries.

[39] In an article titled "Imperialism in the New World Order" he declared his support for socialist movements in Palestine, South Africa, Central America and elsewhere.