New terrorist groups or just the old vets?

Urban guerrillas had gone silent since 2018. That is, until last December, when a bomb was placed outside the headquarters of the riot police in Athens last December.

That one failed to detonate; that was not the case with another bomb that exploded across the street from the Labor Ministry in central Athens on February 3, shattering the windows on the ministry’s bottom two floors.

The two recent bombings were claimed by different groups. Last December’s failed one was claimed by a new group, “Armed Proletarian Justice.” The successful hit was claimed by “Revolutionary Class Self-Defense,” also a new name.

But police are certain that the perpetrators are the same as those who had planted a bomb at the building housing, among others, TV station Skai and Kathimerini, in December 2018, and who had claimed the attack as the “Group of People’s Fighters.” Police have traced the cellphone through which a warning was made last December to evacuate students from the University of Athens campus close to the riot police HQ.

Police also say the attack on riot police was related to clashes between police and hooligans earlier in December, during which a policeman was grievously injured, and eventually died, by a flare. One of the 424 people arrested that night, with ties to suspected armed group members, had accused police of abuse, and officers say the bombing attempt could be a retaliation. Moreover, the same explosives were used in both recent attacks.