New Terror Swoop in Greece

July 6, 2002

ATHENS, Greece -- Greek police have launched a second operation in 72 hours against the November 17 terrorist group.

Police found rockets and other weapons in a raid on a central Athens apartment block on Saturday afternoon.

The haul marks the latest breakthrough in tracking down the radical leftist group which has eluded capture and which is blamed for 23 killings.

On Wednesday, police announced they had uncovered the group's main "weapons den" seizing rockets, bombs and other arms after detaining Savas Xypos.

Xyros, a suspected November 17 member, has been in custody since a botched bomb blast at the Greek port of Piraeus last Saturday.

Police have said findings at his Athens flat included guns, rockets, grenades and the group's trademark flag.

Athens police chief Fotis Nassiakos said Xeros' fingerprints had linked him to a car used during the murder of Greek shipping tycoon Costis Peraticos in 1997 -- an act attributed to November 17.

Xeros, a 40-year-old artist, remains in a critical but stable condition in hospital after the bomb he was carrying exploded.

November 17 is named after the date of a bloody student uprising in 1973 against Greece's then-military dictatorship.

It primarily targets Western diplomats from countries that offered any support to the Greek military dictatorship.

November 17 first emerged in 1974. Its first victim was Richard Welch, CIA station chief at the U.S. embassy.

In 2000 the group murdered Brigadier Stephen Saunders, Britain's senior military attache.

Saunders was ambushed by two men on a motorcycle who fired on him in traffic in Athens.

http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/07/06/greece.arrests/index.html