Armed extremist group claims responsibility for bombing near Greece rail headquarters

ATHENS, Greece — 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.

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.