New armed extremist group claims responsibility for bombing near
Greece's rail headquarters
[April 14, 2025]
By DEMETRIS NELLAS
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A new extremist group claimed responsibility
Sunday for a bomb that exploded near the offices of Hellenic Train,
Greece’s main railway services operator and the planting of another near
the Labor Ministry in early February.
The explosion Friday evening resulted in limited damage and no injuries.
The perpetrators had forewarned of the explosion by calling two media
organizations about 40 minutes before it happened.
In a lengthy posting on the website Athens.indymedia.org on Sunday, the
perpetrators, who styled themselves the Revolutionary Class Struggle,
explained the reasons for their action, which they said was part of an
armed struggle against the state.
Revolutionary Class Struggle dedicated the bombings to “the Palestinian
people and their heroic resistance” and paid tribute to Kyriakos
Xymitiris, a man who was killed last year when the explosive device he
was assembling exploded in a central Athens apartment.
The explosion also came during widespread public anger over a 2023
railway disaster, Greece’s worst, in which 57 people were killed and
dozens more injured when a freight train and a passenger train heading
in opposite directions were accidentally put on the same track.
The deadly accident exposed severe deficiencies in Greece’s railway
system, including in safety systems, and has triggered mass protests led
by relatives of the victims against the country’s conservative
government on the occasion of the accident’s second anniversary.
In its statement, which serves as a sort of manifesto, Revolutionary
Class Struggle connects the accident with what it called the “murders”
of the proletariat in the form of workplace accidents, by capitalists.
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A municipal worker cleans the area outside Hellenic Train
headquarters, Greece's main railway company, following a bomb
explosion Friday night causing causing limited damage but no
injuries, in Athens, Greece, on Saturday, April 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Yorgos
Karahalis)
Greece has a long history of politically motivated violence dating
back to the 1970s, with domestic extremist groups carrying out
small-scale bombings that usually cause damage but rarely lead to
injuries.
While the groups most active in the 1980s and 1990s have been
dismantled, new smaller groups have emerged. Authorities are calling
them a new generation of domestic extremists.
“With the blood not yet dry, they attributed the (train) accident to
human error and the ‘chronic deficiencies of the Greek state,’ in
effect demanding even more freedom of movement for capital, more
privatizations and new attacks on any remaining state-owned
infrastructure,” the extremist group said.
Hellenic Train, the operator of passenger and cargo train services,
was once a subsidiary of state-owned Hellenic Railways. It was split
and sold to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in 2017. Hellenic
Railways retains ownership and responsibility for the maintenance of
the rail infrastructure, including the train stations.
Police say they are following leads, including images of one or two
individuals on security cameras and possible cellphone
conversations.
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