Urban guerrilla offensive in Athens

In less than 48 hours two major bombs have hit Athens, marking what seems to be an urban guerrilla spring offensive in the greek capital.

The first bomb exploded a little after 8:00 a.m. on Friday 19 March at the headquarters of Chrisi Avgi (Golden Dawn) the neo-nazi party of greece, an organisation responsible for countless murder attempts, arson attacks and pogroms against immigrants, leftists and anarchists. The group is led by Mr Mihaloliakos a convicted bomber who founded the Golden Dawn in the early 1980s under the direct orders of the imprisoned head of the colonels junta, Georgios Papadopoulos. The daily Eleftherotypia has published documents of Mr Mihaloliakos salary details in the service of EYP, the greek secret services. The bomb that hit the offices on Sokratous street had been pre-announced to the daily Eleftherotypia, giving 20 minutes to evacuate the building and the near by hotel. The bomb, which has been estimated by the police as "very strong" but with a slow diffusion as to minimise the blast wave that could damage near-by buildings, has demolished the officers, creating a crater through the concrete floor and leaving none but cement columns standing. To this moment no urban guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for the attack which the anti-terrorist bureau has coined "a classic divergence tactic" in relation to the investigations on Lambros Foundas, the 35 year old anarchist shot dead during a gun battle with the police earlier this week. The man is proclaimed by the anti-terrorist bureau as "a key member of one of the big new generation terrorist groups" of greece. Anarchist have launched an extended campaign in honour of Lambros Foundas with thousands of posters and a one thousand strong protest march to the spot of his assassination being realised today noon.

The second bomb exploded at 15:58 p.m on Saturday 20 March at the Police Directorship for Immigrants (Allodapon) at Petrou Ralli avenue, Athens. Allodapon is the notorious camp-like place where all immigrants have to stand in line for endless hours waiting for papers applications while cops brutalise them indiscriminately. There have been many deaths of immigrants as a result of police brutality, as well as protest marches and clashes with the police as a result (all covered in earlier postings in libcom). The explosion was pre-announced to the daily Elefterotypia with a phone-call that allowed 20 minutes to evacuate the buildings and close of the streets. The bomb, which is claimed by the police to be "strong" has damaged part of the premises, while its blast wave has also damaged shops across the avenue, with no human injuries due to the evacuation. Both this and the bomb in Sokratous street were time-bombs.

The bomb attacks come after more than a month of a lull by urban guerrilla groups which has launched a winter offensive during December and January. It must be noticed that the small bomb that hit the house of the vice-president of the Pakistani community yesterday is widely considered to be related to the Pakistani secret services (due to the fact that it has been proceeded by the assassination of an embassy official of Pakistan) and not to domestic armed struggle.