NEW DOMESTIC TERRORIST ATTACKS IN GREECE

UNCLAS ATHENS 000215

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PTER ASEC ABLD PGOV PREL GR
SUBJECT: NEW DOMESTIC TERRORIST ATTACKS IN GREECE

REF: A. ATHENS 165

B. ATHENS 54

Summary
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1. (SBU) There have been several significant new attacks in
Athens in recent days, including a shooting attack on a
television station, a bomb placed outside offices of
Citibank, and a series of bombings targeting prominent
anti-terrorism figures. While no one was killed in these
incidents, they are a significant step up the escalatory
ladder from the usual arson and Molotov cocktail attacks
perpetrated by extremist groups in Greece. They also build
on an earlier round of serious attacks on police by the
terrorist organization Revolutionary Struggle and a possible
new organization called Sect of Revolutionaries. End Summary.

A Spate of Attacks
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2. (U) The most recent incident occurred at 0640 local time
February 18, when police conducted a controlled remote
detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) found
inside a car parked in front of the branch offices of
Citibank in the Athens suburb of Kifissia. Police had
reportedly been informed by a private security guard who saw
the car being parked outside the bank. The IED consisted of
about 60 kg of an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive
substance and propane containers. The IED was placed inside
the trunk of the vehicle, which was reportedly stolen. This
is the first time such a "fertilizer bomb" has been used in
Greece.


3. (U) At approximately 1915 on February 17, four persons
fired at vehicles parked at the Alter TV station in the
Bournazi area in greater Athens. The assailants arrived on
two motorcycles and fired at the vehicles parked near the
rear side of the station next to the employees' entrance.
Police found 12 cartridges at the scene of the attack, 10 of
which were 7.65 mm caliber and 2 of which were 9 mm. While
fleeing the scene the attackers threw an IED that did not
detonate. The attack took place 15 minutes before the
station's main evening newscast. News reports claimed
February 18 that police ballistics had determined the weapons
were the same as those used in a recent attack claimed by
Sect of Revolutionaries.


4. (U) In the early morning February 12, an IED went off
outside the house of senior prosecutor Dimitris
Papangelopoulos, who is in charge of terrorism prosecutions,
causing damage to the building but no injuries. This was one
of nine simultaneous IED incidents, with other targets
including opposition PASOK member Theodoros Pangalos, senior
judge Vassilis Foukas, who was a prosecutor in the trial of
the November 17 (17N) terrorist organization, a university
criminology professor, the communist daily Rizospastis, and
an attorney who represented the victims' families in 17N
proceedings. The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei
Athens-Thessaloniki claimed responsibility for these attacks
and eight earlier ones in a statement published on an
anarchist website February 14.

Comment
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5. (SBU) These latest attacks follow a series of shooting
attacks on police in January by the Revolutionary Struggle
terrorist organization (ref B) and a February 3 attack on a
police station that was claimed by the previously unknown
Sect of Revolutionaries (ref A). These and other Greek
extremist groups have made no secret of their intention to
increase attacks in order to build on the political
environment that produced large-scale rioting following the
police shooting of a teenager in early December.
SPECKHARD