High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Xa Loi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on August 21, 1963. The raids were executed by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Le Quang Tung, and combat police, both of which took their orders directly from Ngo Dinh Nhu, the younger brother of the Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem. The Xa Loi Pagoda, the largest in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, was the most prominent of the temples raided. Over 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, and estimates of the death toll and missing ranged up to the hundreds.