A powerful bomb exploded early Monday outside the southern Athens headquarters of Greece’s private Skai broadcaster, which has been strongly critical of government policies, damaging the glass-fronted building but causing no injuries.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which resembled attacks by domestic extreme left-wing and anarchist groups, whose past targets have included media groups.
Attacks targeting broadcasting groups, public companies or embassies have been frequent in Greece in recent years, and have been blamed on anarchist or far-left groups.
Greece’s far left-led government, which has harshly and repeatedly criticized Skai for its perceived anti-government bias, strongly condemned the bombing.
The terrorist attack also revisited a months-long row between the mostly leftist government, as well as the small right-wing junior coalition partner led by controversial DM Panos Kammenos, and the Skai group.
The feud reached a boiling point late last July in the wake of the deadly Mati wildfire, when journalist, political commentator and radio host Takis Hatzis cited anonymous sources in predicting that the police and fire brigade chiefs would be cashiered. Kammenos himself had also issued prickly statements against Skai in the past.
According to the Greek Police (ELAS) officers investigating an early morning bomb blast at the headquarters of Skai TV on Athens’s southern coast on Monday, a far-left organization calling itself Group of Popular Fighters may be behind the attack.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras issued a statement condemning the “attack by cowardly and dark forces against democracy itself.”
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link to www.eutimes.net]
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