Police detain 5 suspected members of neo-Nazi group
The five people arrested in a crackdown by counterterrorism police on Tuesday are believed to be members of the “sister” groups Combat 18 Hellas and Unaligned Meander Nationalists suspected to be behind more than 30 attacks, chiefly targeting anarchist squats and Jewish memorials.
The raids on Tuesday focused on houses in Attica as well as Serres and Ioannina in northern Greece and turned up a wealth of homemade firebombs, knives and clubs as well as 50 kilograms of the explosive ammonium nitrate. Officers also seized Nazi memorabilia and videos.
One of the videos declares that Combat 18 “holds the future of nationalist activism.” “The new blood of C18 in Greece is here and answers to no one but the swastika,” it says.
Combat 18 Hellas is believed to be an offshoot of the British neo-Nazi group Combat 18. The 18 in the name relates to the position of Adolf Hitler’s initials in the alphabet.
