The issue of representing attacks to attacks in argumentation is receiving an increasing attention as a useful conceptual modelling tool in several contexts. In this paper we present AFRA, a formalism encompassing unlimited recursiveattacks within argumentationframeworks. AFRA satisfies the basic requirements of definition simplicity and rigorous compatibility with Dung’s theory of argumentation. This paper provides a complete development of the AFRA formalism complemented by illustrative examples and a detailed comparison with other recursiveattack formalizations.