Authorities in Greece have uncovered a planned attack involving four Greek nationals suspected of being terrorists, Greek Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said on Monday.
The October 31st blast gutted a third-floor apartment in the central Ambelokipi neighborhood, killing a 36-year-old man believed to have been assembling an explosive device. A 33-year-old woman was severely injured and remains hospitalized under police guard. A 31-year-old male suspect surrendered to authorities, and his 30-year-old girlfriend was arrested on Monday.
“It was a monstrous bomb with concentrated explosive material,” Chrisochoidis told private Skai television. “It would have caused great destruction because it was very powerful.” The apartment block has been declared uninhabitable due to blast damage.
The bomb that exploded prematurely would have caused major destruction to any intended target, Chrysochoidis told local media.
The intended target and timing of the planned attack remain under investigation. All three suspects, as well as the man killed in the blast, are Greek nationals.
The explosion demolished internal and external walls in the third-floor apartment, blew away its balcony railings, and damaged neighboring properties.
A new generation of terrorists in Greece?
The findings of an ongoing police investigation into the explosion so far indicate those arrested were members of a group of Greeks “aspiring to become the next generation of domestic terrorists,” Chrysochoidis added.
The suspects have already been charged with formation and participation in a terrorist group, possession of explosives, construction of a bomb, and involvement in terrorist acts, authorities said.
Anti-terrorism units investigating the blast site, three additional locations, and a vehicle seized two handguns with magazines, digital devices, disguise materials including wigs and rubber masks, and handwritten diagrams.
Greece has a decades-old history of far-left extremism involving small urban groups. The major groups that carried out a string of assassinations from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s have been eradicated and their members jailed.
The most notorious of those groups was the Revolutionary Organization 17 November. Formed in 1975 and led by Alexandros Giotopoulos, 17 November conducted an extensive urban guerrilla campaign of left-wing violence against the Greek state, banks, and businesses.
The organization committed 103 known armed robberies, assassinations, and bombing attacks, during which 23 people were killed.
The organization was known for targeting American, British, and other foreign diplomats and military personnel, particularly in retribution against the US for its support of the coup d’état and the dictatorship.
They were succeeded by smaller and less efficient groups which mostly staged bomb attacks on symbols of state authority and wealth but had been largely dormant in recent years.
Related: Ten Suspects Face Terrorism Charges in Greece
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