Revolutionary Organization 17 November - Attacks

Attacks

17N's first attack, on 23 December 1975, was against the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Athens, Richard Welch. Welch was gunned down outside his residence by four assailants, in front of his wife and driver. 17N's repeated claims of responsibility were ignored until December 1976, when it murdered the former intelligence chief of the Greek security police, Evangelos Mallios and left its proclamation at the scene. In January 1980 17N murdered Pantelis Petrou, the deputy director of the riot police (MAT) and his driver. It also intervened with two long proclamations offering theoretical guidance to the Greek armed struggle and criticizing a non-deadly rival group, Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) for poor target selection and operational incompetence.

17N resumed its attacks in November 1983, killing the deputy chief of the U.S. military assistance mission (JUSSMAG) George Tsantes. In 1985 it broadened its targeting with the murder of conservative newspaper publisher Nikos Momferatos. The proclamation left near his body accused Momferatos of CIA connections and complained that Greece "remained a puppet regime in the hands of the American imperialists and the economic establishment." In 1986, 17N murdered Dimitris Angelopoulos, one of Greece's leading industrialists, charging that he and other members of Greece's "lumpen big bourgeoisie class" were plundering Greece at the expense of workers.

17N responded to the 1988 George Koskotas scandal with a wave of murders and kidnappings. In the 1989 parliamentary elections 17N urged voters to deface their ballots with the 17N star. The assassination of New Democracy member of parliament Pavlos Bakoyannis in September 1989 prompted public outrage, including among Greek communists who respected Bakoyannis as a courageous anti-Junta journalist. The group abandoned its electoral pretensions and took a more nationalist turn.

Other victims included Captain William Nordeen USN, the U.S. defense attache, whose car was destroyed by a car bomb a few meters from his residence on 28 June 1988, and U.S. Air Force Sergeant Ronald O. Stewart, who was killed by a remotely detonated bomb outside his apartment on 12 March 1991.

In addition to its anti-American and anti-capitalist agenda, the group was also opposed to Turkey and NATO. Çetin Görgü, Turkish press attaché, shot in his car on 7 October 1991; Ömer Haluk Sipahioğlu, Turkish embassy counselor, shot on an Athens street on 4 July 1994; ship and shipyard owner Constantinos Peratikos, shot leaving his office on 28 May 1997; and Brigadier Stephen Saunders on 8 June 2000.

17N used as its "signature weapons" two .45 M1911 semi-automatics. While face-to-face assassination was the early modus operandi, in 1985 the group exploded its first bomb, using a long cable to detonate stolen quarrying explosives, against a bus full of riot police, killing one.

In October 1986 17N bombed four tax offices. This was its first low-level attack against property. In December 1988 17N stole 114 obsolete anti-tank rockets from a poorly guarded Greek military depot. Between 1990 and 1999 17N conducted 24 rocket attacks, all but three of them aimed at property rather than human targets. In November 1990, a rocket attack against the armored limousine of shipowner Vardis Vardinogiannis failed. In 1991, 17N rocketed a riot police bus, killing one officer and wounding 14. In July 1992, a young passerby, Thanos Axarlian, was killed in a failed rocket attack on Economy Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas.

After their inaugural attack on the CIA station chief, the group tried to get mainstream newspapers to publish their manifesto. Their first proclamation, claiming the murder of Richard Welch, was first sent to "Libération" in Paris, France. It was given to the publisher of "Libération" via the offices of Jean Paul Sartre, but was not published. After subsequent attacks, 17N usually sent a communique to the Eleftherotypia newspaper. The group argued in its communiques that it wanted to rid Greece of U.S. bases, to remove the Turkish military from Cyprus, and to sever Greece's ties to NATO and the European Union.

On 7 April 1998 the group used a stolen anti-armor rocket to attack a downtown branch of the American Citibank, which caused damage but no injuries, as the warhead did not explode. The rocket was fired by remote control from a private car parked outside the bank on Drossopoulou street in the downtown district of Kypseli.