"SECT OF REVOLUTIONARIES" CLAIMS TV STATION

UNCLAS ATHENS 000248 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PTER PGOV ASEC ABLD GR SUBJECT: "SECT OF REVOLUTIONARIES" CLAIMS TV STATION ATTACK, PROMISES BIGGER, BLOODIER ATTACKS TO COME REF: A. ATHENS 165 ¶B. ATHENS 215 ¶1. (SBU) On February 21, the Greek newspaper Ta Nea published the text of a letter it reportedly received the day before from the "Sect of Revolutionaries" claiming responsibility for the February 17 attack against the Alter TV station. In that attack, four assailants fired at vehicles and threw an IED, which failed to detonate, outside the Alter TV station in the Bournazi area of greater Athens (ref. B). No one was injured in the attack, but police ballistics determined that the weapons used were the same as those used in the February 3 machine-gun and grenade attack against the Korydallos police station, for which the Sect of Revolutionaries also claimed responsibility (ref. A). ¶2. (SBU) In its approximately 2500-word letter about the TV station attack, the Sect of Revolutionaries said they had gone after the television station to send a signal to journalists that their time in the "no fire zone" of Greek public life was over. The letter was written in the same angry, direct style as the February 4 Sect of Revolutionaries letter about the Korydallos police station, though the second letter contained relatively more Marxist-inspired ideological analysis, identifying mainstream Greek journalism as the purveyors of a "fascist monologue" that serves up political propaganda in defense of the status quo as well as information. Journalists, according to the terrorists' letter, "manipulate our minds daily and fill (them) with values and functions that feed the system." Given their role in the current system, the terrorists argued, journalists would now be considered legitimate targets along with the police. The letter went on to say that the attack on the TV station was only a preamble to much bigger and bloodier attacks to come. ¶3. (SBU) In one of its final sentences, the letter also tried to link the two Sect of Revolutionaries' attacks to the shooting of a Brinks Security guard by a deranged police officer outside Ambassador's residence on February 4. According to the letter, the Sect of Revolutionaries' establishment of a climate of "permanent threat" had led the police officer out of fear of a terrorist attack to shoot and wound, "unfortunately not fatally," the Brinks guard. (NOTE: Embassy has seen no evidence linking the shooting of the guard with any terrorist activities. END NOTE.) ¶4. (SBU) COMMENT: With this second claimed attack in less than a month, the Sect of Revolutionaries is quickly becoming amongst the most prominent domestic terror groups in Greece. Its hit-and-run attacks display a level of impulsiveness and bravado at variance with the more calculated approach of the other leading Greek terror group, Revolutionary Struggle, whose tactics are themselves a pale reflection of the disciplined precision of the infamous 17 November. We will watch carefully for indications that the Sect of Revolutionaries' attacks are becoming bigger and bloodier, as promised. In the meantime, observers are anxiously awaiting identification of the perpetrators of the large, unexploded bomb discovered February 18 outside the Kifissia branch of Citibank. The Hellenic Police told us that the bomb failed to go off due to a design fault, but many here are concerned that the attempted use of such a fertilizer and fuel oil bomb -- the first ever in Greece -- indicates Greek terrorism may be turning from precision targeted attacks to indiscriminate violence. SPECKHARD