Machine gun attack and car bomb in Athens

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Athens witnessed two more attacks by armed groups in the last 24 hours. In the first incident the car park of the Greek TV station, Alter was sprayed by machine gun fire and and an improvised explosive device was left at the scene.

According to the state - run ERT news service a technician who had just left the building ran straight into the attackers. However, he was told to go back in as he was not the target of their attack. The four men then escaped using motorcycles but not before shooting at cars and throwing the home made bomb which failed to go off. Offical police reports say that the weapons ballistics used match those used in the attack last week on a police station in the Athens suburb of Korydallos. 

The incident is the latest in a series of armed assults since the riots in December, however, it is the first to involve a target other than the police. A previously unknown group calling itself the Revolutionary Sect claimed responsibility for the previous attack in a CD which was left on the grave of Alexis Grigoropulos, the 15 year killed by police last December. In the declaration, however, it did warn that the media would be considered a legitimate target as well as the police

In addition a massive car bomb was defused outside Citibank offices in the Kifissia suburb of the Greek capital. The alarm was raised by a security guard who phoned the police at 4.30 am.

The device, which consisted of several kilos of the explosive ANFO (sometimes known as a fertiliser bomb) and five propane gas cannisters hidden in the trunk of the car was defused by the bomb squad at 6.40am.  If it had exploded police experts believe that the damage would have been devastating. Similar devices have been used in the past by groups such as the IRA, ETA and FARC.

The incidents mark a re-apperance of terrorism in Greece which had all but disappeared following the capture of the members of the marxist group, 17th November in 2002.