The police’s Anti-Terrorism Division launched raids in different parts of Athens and detained eight suspects in association with a terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for three bomb attacks and has levelled threats against judges. According to police, another two individuals who are penitentiary inmates are also being investigated in the same case. During the operation, police dug ten residences and seized material that will be reviewed as evidence.
The case involves the group “Sympraxi Ekdikisis” (Revenge Partnership), which has asserted responsibility for three terrorist actions via an unrestricted anti-establishment website.
These include A grenade attack on the vehicle of a prison officer in Haidari in July 2023; A bomb attack against a construction company in Kifissia in November 2023; A bomb explosion at a National Bank building in Petralona on January 25, 2024.
In November, amid the disclosures about the static problems of the metal roof of the Olympic Stadium, developed by Santiago Calatrava, members of the same group had struck the offices of a construction company in Kifissia. “The reason the episode took place is to target the corrupt role of construction companies,” stated the group in an online post. The third attack was the shot in late January of a bomb at a National Bank of Greece branch in Petralona. In a post arguing responsibility, the perpetrators had committed their action against an imprisoned anarchist comrade, who, as they noted, had started his urban guerrilla activities by targeting the bank.
Officials have voiced fears of a resurgence of terrorism in Greece. Earlier in February, a bomb detonated in the heart of Athens across the Ministry of Labor. Initially, Greek Police (ELAS) thought the bomb that exploded early in the morning was planned to destroy a bank on Stadiou Street. However, further investigations indicated that the actual target was the government structure on the opposite side of the street.
Police professionals now believe that the bombing is part of an organized and extensive method to use urban guerrilla tactics in Greece’s capital. They also think it was a symbolic act and wasn’t meant to lead to any victims. A few days later, explosives dispatched to the Thessaloniki’s Courthouse enclosed in an envelope were successfully neutralized by the bomb disposal unit. The parcel, handled by a female senior judge, reached her third-floor office at the Thessaloniki Courthouse. It included gelatin dynamite.
There was no direct claim of responsibility. Similar attacks have been carried out in recent years by small far-left militant companies targeting symbols of authority. Last week, police were positioned on high alert after phone calls to TV stations cautioned about the placement of bombs in the embassies of Israel, Egypt, and the US in Athens, as well as at the Parliament.
Special bomb squad teams that flowed to the embassy buildings in Athens discovered no explosive devices, leading experts to end it was a hoax. Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis recently expressed the government will not allow a terrorism resurgence in Greece. “We are not going to let terrorism be revived,” he emphasised speaking to SKAI television. “We will not allow it. Some brazen and difficult people did an act that could endanger the lives of our fellow citizens,” Chrysochoidis declared. “We will do everything we can so that the perpetrators of such criminal actions are brought to justice and punished.”
