GREECE: BOMB ATTACK AT GOVERNMENT REAL ESTATE

UNCLAS ATHENS 000349 SENSITIVE SIPDIS TERREP DEPT PASS TO EUR/SE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PTER ASEC KCRM GR SUBJECT: GREECE: BOMB ATTACK AT GOVERNMENT REAL ESTATE AGENCY REF: ATHENS 318 ¶1. (SBU) At approximately 2130 on March 19, a bomb went off near the entrance of the Hellenic Public Real Estate Corporation (KED),heavily damaging a nearby parked car. No injuries or deaths were reported. According to police contacts and media reporting, the bomb was placed in a plastic bag and tied to a pole beside a new gas main being installed at the KED building. After the blast, police sealed off the area and confirmed that the gas main's safety shutoff valve had worked. Just prior to the detonation, a security guard had moved away from the blast area, suggesting that the bomb was remotely detonated. However, few fragments have been recovered and the size of the charge is unknown. The KED building is one block away from Hellenic Police headquarters and approximately 0.6 km from Embassy Athens. There have been no claims of responsibility so far and police have not identified any suspects. ¶2. (SBU) This attack follows the March 12 claim of responsibility by domestic terrorist group Revolutionary Struggle (RS) for two other recent attacks: the March 9 early morning bombing of a Citibank branch in the Athens suburb of Nea Ionia, and the February 18 attempted bombing of a Citibank branch in the Athens suburb of Kifissia (see REFTEL). To Pondiki, a satirical leftist weekly, published the full text of Revolutionary Struggle's claim of responsibility, a 9,000-word proclamation that criticized multinational financial companies and called Citibank a "den of thieves and criminals." The proclamation's first section described how RS took pains to minimize the chance of "civilian" casualties, but stated that RS would continue to use timed bombs and bomb threat warning calls to the media in future attacks. ¶3. (SBU) The remainder of the proclamation was a historical analysis of the international economic crisis that blamed international financial institutions for a deepening gap between "rulers and ruled." The goals of RS, stated at the end of the proclamation: "We should fight the financial and political regime with all means, we should fight for social and class revolution, we should fight for economic equality and freedom." SPECKHARD