| The Greek intelligence services were shown their inconsistency Yesterday morning, exactly 100 days before the start of the Summer Olympics in Athens, in the Greek capital, in the Kallithea area, where the hotels for the Games participants are located, three small bombs exploded next to the police station. This exemplary terrorist attack was carried out, so to speak, in a mocking manner. 10 minutes before the explosion, the editorial office of the newspaper “Eleftherotype” received an anonymous call: the terrorist named the place and time of laying the infernal machines. This publication is accustomed to such antics: Greek leftists, before terrorist attacks, often use this newspaper as an intermediary for communication with law enforcement agencies. Having received the signal, the police went to the scene, but did not have time to prevent the explosions. It was only possible to clear the future crime scene of people.
The first two bombs detonated after a five-minute pause around 5 am. The sappers continued to look for the third infernal machine, but did not have time - half an hour later a third explosion was heard. The bombs were a bunch of sticks of dynamite with a detonator and a clock mechanism. Fortunately, no one was injured during the attacks: only the police station building, several parked cars and a motorcycle were damaged.
For the Greek intelligence services, this terrorist attack came as an extremely unpleasant surprise. Local organizers invested $1.22 billion in protecting the Olympics from terrorist attacks, attracted NATO aviation and navy to patrol the skies over Athens and the Aegean Sea, and hired about 50 thousand agents. In March, a two-week exercise “Shield of Hercules 2004” took place, during which defense against the most exotic attacks, including the explosion of a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was practiced. For the first time, an auxiliary advisory “security committee” was organized before the games with the participation of the USA, Spain, France, Britain, and Israel. It would take a long time to describe the preparations: the Greeks, despite all their legendary carelessness, are still trying to hold the Games without terrorism. But now this entire gigantic safety machine has been pulled by the whiskers with impunity. A certain attacker hides bundles of dynamite under the noses of the police, sets the clock to 5 am and calls the newspaper: they say, now let your 50 thousand agents, with the support of the air force and navy, try to defuse three simple bombs. And the bomb technicians are unable to keep up, and the intelligence services, apparently, did not even have an operational hint about the possibility of a terrorist attack.
Greek authorities blamed local anarchists or leftists. Indeed, the style is very similar: small groups with pretentious names like “Angry Proletarians” regularly carry out such micro-terrorist attacks (in April 2002, a bomb exploded in the American KFC diner; in July 2001, they destroyed an ATM in the Athens branch of the National Bank; in November of the same year, an explosion was an American Express bank branch in one of the suburbs of Athens was damaged, etc.). Therefore, the government claims that there is no evidence yet linking the explosion to the Games. Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said it was "an isolated incident that will in no way affect preparations for the Olympics."
The Greeks were also supported at the international level - British Prime Minister Tony Blair noted: “We believe that the Greek authorities will cope with this.” The Australians, however, said that they would not persuade their athletes if any of them refused to go to Athens. But even before these explosions, from time to time there were voices of skeptics who believed that security in Greece was bad. The April statement of seven-time Olympic champion Mark Spitz, who, however, long ago retired from big-time sports, caused a particular stir. He said he believed that because of the total terrorist threat, "sending a team to Athens would be political suicide" and "the Bush administration will not put its athletes in danger." However, no one supported such a radical decision: everyone hopes that Greece will be able to protect the Games from serious threats. But it is not yet possible to insure against “isolated incidents” with dynamite sticks. Vladimir DZAGUTO |
|
