Israeli embassy in Athens

The guerrilla organization Group of Popular Fighters has claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on the Israeli Embassy in Athens in December, the police said on Wednesday after collecting a memory stick with the group?s proclamation from a trash bin in Nea Smyrni.

A terrorist organization calling itself the Group of Popular Fighters has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens in December.

An unidentified man called at the Efimerida ton Suntakton newspaper late Tuesday to say that a statement, recorded on a memory stick, had been left inside a garbage bin in Nea Smyrni, south of Athens.

Captured fugitive Christodoulos Xeros, convicted to six life sentences over as many murders committed by terrorist group November 17, had been planning a major attack against Koydallos Prison, the police said on Sunday.

Xeros had been at large for a year after failing to return from furlough in January 2014 and until his arrest on Saturday in Anavyssos, southeast of Athens.

Following last week’s gun attack against the Israeli Embassy in Athens, the Greek Police’s counter-terrorism unit is on alert for another assault, possibly against a human target, in the countdown to critical presidential elections, sources have told Kathimerini.

The police believe that the Popular Fighters Group which was most likely behind the armed attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens on Friday is made up of anti-establishment figures who have been involved in armed robberies and gun running or is formed by a network of anarchists brought together by Nikos Maziotios, a convicted terrorist currently serving a 50-year prison sentence.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Athens, it emerged on Saturday.

Nobody was hurt in the predawn raid on Friday, when more than 50 shots were fired from Kalashnikov assault rifles at the building near central Athens.

Greece insisted on Friday that it would not be deterred from pursuing closer ties with Israel after gunmen opened fire on the Israeli Embassy in Athens, an attack that police believe was carried out by urban guerrillas calling themselves the Popular Fighters Group.

Greek Police said ballistic tests showed that the weapons used in the pre-dawn attack against the Israeli embassy in Athens Friday were the same ones employed in a similar shooting outside the German ambassador's residence in Athens in December last year.

A small left-wing terrorist group called “Popular Fighters” had claimed responsibility for that attack, which caused no injury.

The Greek government condemned on Friday as a "terrorist assault on democracy" a night-time gun attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens that saw the building sprayed with gunfire but no one hurt.

Greek authorities are investigating a pre-dawn, drive-by gunfire attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens, which caused no injuries or damage.

Police closed off a major road outside the embassy early Friday and forensics experts in white protective clothing were searching the area.