The Return of Classical Greek Terrorism
Lee, Minhwan
Greek anti-terrorism police officer Nektarios Savas was shot and killed June
17 while guarding a state witness in an Athens neighborhood. Savas was
parked in an unmarked vehicle outside the residence of Sofia Kyriakidou, the
wife and key witness in the trial of Angeletos Kanas, a convicted member of
a defunct Greek militant group. At 6:20 a.m., shortly after sunrise in
Athens, Savas had just gotten coffee and was settling in for his shift when
two gunmen approached his vehicle and fired 24 rounds into it, hitting him
18 times and wounding him fatally. The assassins then sped away on
motorcycles driven by two other accomplices. Savas was never able to draw
his weapon.
Although the witness Savas was protecting was in the house at the time of
the shooting, the gunmen do not appear to have made any attempt to harm her.
Two groups claimed responsibility for the murder, ��Revolutionary Sect�� and
��Rebel Sect,�� but groups using slight variations of these names have
claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks so far this year. It is very
common for militant groups to claim responsibility for attacks using
different names to confuse their pursuers. We believe the group behind most
of the recent attacks is ��Revolutionary Struggle�� (EA).
EA (its initials in Greek) is thought to be a spinoff from the Greek
terrorist group November 17 (N-17) and has been operational since at least
October 2003. It shares a similar ideology with N-17, which rejected
democracy, capitalism and outside influence in Greece ? especially from the
United States. EA rejects EU policies in Greece that it claims hurt the
working class. EA was very vocal in the run-up to the 2004 Olympics in
Athens, carrying out attacks against businesses and the police to protest
the high levels of security in the country and the high price tag that came
with hosting the games.
The murder of Savas and other recent attacks by EA demonstrate that the
group is becoming increasingly brazen and aggressive, and comparisons
between EA and N-17 reach beyond ideology. EA has used tactics and attacked
a target set very much like those of N-17. It is quite possible, then, that
we will see EA expand its actions to include attacks similar to those
carried out by N-17, which, throughout its long operational history,
assassinated not only police officers but also diplomats and industrialists
by using small arms at close range.
Terrorism in Greece
Periodic attacks by anarchists and left-wing militant groups in Greece date
back to 1975, when the emerging N-17 shot and killed CIA Station Chief
Richard Welch in Athens. In 2009, however, militant attacks have become more
frequent and lethal. There have been 16 attacks so far in 2009, compared to
10 in 2008 and 4 in 2007, and Savas was the first casualty linked to EA or
similar groups since 2004.
He was not the first police officer to have been targeted in recent years.
On Jan. 5, 2009, during protests in Athens following the police shooting of
a 15-year-old boy in December 2008, gunmen shot and seriously wounded a
policeman standing watch outside the Culture Ministry building (EA claimed
responsibility). Then on February 3, three gunmen on motorcycles fired on
and threw grenades at a police station in an Athens suburb (claimed the next
day by a group calling itself the ��Sect of Revolutionaries��). And in
December 2004, a policeman was shot and killed while guarding a British
diplomat by a man believed to be linked to EA.
In its early stages, EA typically avoided lethal attacks. The group would
place warning calls before detonating an improvised explosive device (IED)
and conduct attacks at night when the chances of collateral damage were
lower. Their attacks were more the acts of vandals than terrorists. However,
in recent years EA has increased its level of violence and has staged
attacks that are clearly intended to kill. Due to this escalation, EA has
begun to look more like N-17, and its recent attacks appear to be borrowing
from N-17��s playbook.
Shared Tactics
N-17 was comprised of a small group of dedicated militants who, over a
period of 25 years in the 1970s, ��80s and ��90s, were responsible for
assassinating 22 people before being taken down by Greek authorities in June
2002 (the break came when an N-17 member was wounded while attempting to
plant an IED). N-17 targeted Greek political offices, police and military
installations and vehicles, tax offices and facilities of foreign
multinational corporations (MNCs). For targeted assassinations, it employed
simple attacks with firearms ? a single .45-caliber automatic pistol was
linked by ballistics to five different attacks over a 20-year period. But
N-17 also used anti-tank rockets (acquired in a raid on an army camp in
1989) and IEDs, which were involved in its attack against the U.S. Embassy
in Athens in 1996 and in its 1988 assassination of U.S. Navy Capt. William
Nordeen.
But N-17��s most lethal tactic was the small-arms attack against foreign
diplomats and Greek businessmen as they were entering or exiting their
vehicles or as they were stopped in traffic. Its first attack, against
Welch, the CIA station chief, occurred outside his home as he was coming
back from a Christmas party. In 1983, the head of the U.S. military aid
group in Greece, Navy Capt. George Tsantes, was shot and killed while in his
vehicle at a traffic light. Greek industrialist Dimitris Angelopoulos was
shot outside his home as he was entering his vehicle in April 1986. A number
of other cases followed the same script, all the way through to 2000, when
British defense attache Brig. Stephen Saunders was shot and killed on his
morning commute to the British Embassy by two gunmen on a motorcycle, a
get-away vehicle that appears to be as popular with EA as it was with N-17.
It is telling that when EA decided to kill officer Savas it opted for the
same tactics as its predecessor used: gunmen on motorcycles striking
vehicle-borne targets who were following routine schedules. Such attacks
adhere to a tried-and-true formula that, while not as dramatic as IEDs and
rocket attacks, is very straightforward and embodies a simple, brutal
elegance.
Shared Target Set
EA appears to have adopted N-17��s target set as well as its tactics. EA and
related groups routinely target foreign MNC facilities such as car
dealerships and banks, along with security installations and political
offices (such as those of Greece��s leading party, New Democracy, attacked
in July 2007). But EA also has a taste, as did N-17, for going after foreign
diplomatic targets. In January 2007, EA fired an anti-tank rocket at the
U.S. Embassy in Athens, damaging an outside wall. In 2007 and 2008,
militants possibly linked to EA detonated a series of improvised incendiary
devices made with camping gas canisters under vehicles belonging to Saudi,
Turkish, Philippine Italian and Bosnian diplomats. The attacks typically
destroyed the cars but caused no physical harm to anyone.
While targeting parked diplomatic vehicles with improvised incendiary
devices at night posed a minimal threat to people, it did demonstrate that
the perpetrators possessed skills that could be employed to more lethal
effect. Even low-level attacks like those on the diplomatic cars showed that
militants could follow the basic terrorism attack cycle and conduct
preoperational surveillance to determine where the cars were parked at
night. Then they were able to plan their attacks, acquire the necessary
materials, construct their devices and plant them without detection. And if
an attacker can determine where a diplomat parks his or her car at night and
plan an operation around that, it is not a very large leap to shoot a
diplomat walking to a car or sitting inside a car in traffic. Of course,
simply identifying a vehicle with diplomatic plates does not automatically
mean that the owner is a high-level diplomat. In order to identify a
high-value target (HVT) such as a CIA station chief or military attache,
additional intelligence would have to be collected.
To justify its increasing aggressiveness, EA has used accusations of police
brutality stemming from the December 2008 shooting of a youth, but another
underlying factor that has led to public unrest in Greece is the global
economic crisis, which in Europe is widely blamed on foreign companies and
governments. EA and like-minded groups have made it clear that international
banks and investment houses are in their crosshairs, as seen in the
attempted Feb. 18 IED attack on a Citibank branch in Athens and a successful
attack on a Citibank branch the next month. Just as the attack against the
U.S. Embassy and diplomatic vehicles demonstrated that foreign diplomats are
in EA��s target set, these bank attacks demonstrate that financial
executives also could be targeted.
Protecting Against the Threat
No government has the resources to protect everything, and the Greek
government is no exception. EA has many targets, which means that Athens
cannot possibly protect every foreign diplomat, Greek industrialist and
foreign businessman in the country. Because of this, individuals in this
target set must begin to practice good personal security habits and
increased situational awareness. Special attention should be paid to
possible surveillants on motorcycles (especially those wearing helmets that
obscure the entire face). N-17 shot several victims from motorcycles as the
victims were sitting in their cars in Athens traffic. Assailants would pull
up from behind the driver��s window and fire from close range. Potential EA
targets should pay close attention to motorcycles approaching them from the
rear as they are stopped in traffic.
Likewise, companies and governments with people on the ground in Greece
should conduct their own proactive security measures to prevent falling
victim to an attack. One of the most obvious measures is to institute a
countersurveillance (CS) program, since any attack would be preceded by
preoperational surveillance of the target. Employing a countersurveillance
team will help identify potential surveillants around sensitive targets
(such as private residences, offices or commonly used routes) and increase
the likelihood of thwarting an attack while it is still in the planning
stage. (Such efforts might also produce information that would help the
Greek government identify EA operatives.) However, even if a CS operation is
not successful at identifying specific operatives, it could, at the very
least, make it harder for militants to attack a certain target and encourage
them to move on to something less challenging.
With attacks escalating in Greece, a militant group apparently taking its
cues from N-17, and an economic crisis stirring up social unrest, the level
of risk in Greece ? especially Athens ? is very high. Practicing appropriate
security measures will help ensure the safety of HVTs and prevent them from
becoming the next media story.
Postscript for Security Pros
The June 17 Savas killing holds a strong lesson for anyone working alone to
protect a potential target. This is not as uncommon as it might seem: There
are many executive protection teams around the world in both government and
private industry that rely on a single officer or agent working to keep a
principal safe. And it is not at all uncommon for a lone agent, like Savas,
to work long hours posted in front of the principal��s home.
During such an operation, it is extremely difficult to remain alert ?
especially after standing a post for weeks or months without anything
happening. It becomes a full-time job merely to remain alert during an
entire shift and it is very easy for complacency to set in. This danger is
amplified in the age of iPhones, PDAs and laptop computers, devices that
make it very easy to become distracted. But lack of situational awareness
can be very deadly, even for trained security personnel.
Mitsos
> By Fred Burton and Ben West
>
<snip>
Terrorism:The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence)
against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or
religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or
coercion or instilling fear
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According to the above description it was not terrorism.
" If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists". or so the war
criminal Bush said a few years back to the people who opposed his
illegal war against Iraq.