One might think that it would be hard to take seriously a secret organization that has a flag and publishes a photograph like this which looks like it comes out of Joseph McCarthy's worst nightmare. But from 1975 to 2000 the November 17th Terrorist Organization committed dozens of attacks and murdered 23 people in Greece. The success of the group in avoiding capture had more to do with luck than anything else and despite going for 27 years without the capture of one member, a bumbled bombing attempt in the summer of 2002 brought the organization crashing down like a house of cards. This is a list of their exploits, or at least the ones we know about.:
December 12 1975:
Murder of CIA Station Chief Richard Welch in Psychiko
December
13 1976: Assassination of Police officer Evangelos
Mallios who had been discharged after torturing prisoners during the Junta
January
16 1980: Murder of MAT(Riot Squad) Deputy Director
Pantelis Petrou and his driver in Pangrati
November
15 1980: US Navy Captain George Tsantes who is the
head of JUSMAGG is killed with his driver Nikos Veloutsos, an employee of the US Embassy,
on Kiffissia Avenue in Psychiko
August
3rd 1984: Failed attempt
against JUSMAGG officer Robert Judd near the US Airbase at Hellenikon
February
21 1985: Publisher Nikos Momferatos of the daily
paper Apogevmatini
and his driver are killed in Kolonaki
November
26 1985: Officer Ioannis Georgakopoulos is killed
when a bomb explodes near a MAT bus near the Hilton
April
8 1986: Industrialist Dimitris Angelopoulos, chairman
of Halivourgiki Steel Company and friend of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou is
killed while leaving his home in Koloniki.
October
5 1986: Bomb attacks on Tax Offices
February
4th 1987: Attack on Dr Zacharias Kapsalakis
April
24 1987: Bomb attack on US Air Force bus. 16 American
soldiers and the driver are injured.
August
10 1987: Remote control car bomb injures 11 American
soldiers on a bus in Kavouri.
January
21 1988: Failed assassination on US official George
Karos
March 1 1988:
Murder of Industrialist Alexandros Athanasiades-Bodosakis on Kiffisias Avenue
in Filothei
June 28 1988:
Assassination of US Military Attache Wiliam Nordeen by booby-trapped car in
Kifissia.
August 15 1988:
Attack on police station in Vyronas. Without firing a shot November 17th members
tie up a number of police officers and leave with cache of weapons and ammunition.
January
10 1989: Public Prosecutor Constantine Androulidakis
is wounded in the legs but dies a month later.
May
8 1989: Former Minister Giorgos Petsos is inured
in a bomb attack in Filothei
September
26 1989: Pavlos Bakoyiannis, New Democracy Parliamentary
spokesman and son-in-law of party leader Constantine Mitsotakis is shot
and killed allegedly for his part in the Bank of Crete scandal. He was
the husband of Dora Bakoyiannis and the first active politician to be killed.
December
25 1989: Anti-tank rockets and ammunition are stolen
from a base in Larissa
May 15 1990:
Bazookas are stolen from the Athens War Museum.
November
20 1990: Rocket attack on the armored limousine
of businessan Vardis Vardinoyiannis, who escapes unharmed.
March
13 1991: Remote controlled bomb kills US Army Sergeant
Ronald Stewart in Glyfada
July 16
1991: Turkish charge-d'affaires Deniz Bulikbasi
is injured by a car bomb.
September
7 1991: Cetin Giorku, Turkish assistant press
attache is shot and killed in his car in Pangrati
November
2 1991: Policeman Yiannis Varis is killed and 6
other policemen are inured by rocket and grenade attack on a MAT bus in Exarchia.
July
14 1992: Finance Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas
escapes injury when his limousine is attacked by rockets but passerby Athanasios
Axarlian, and 22 year old student is killed on Voulis street.
December
21 1992: New Democracy party deputy chairman Eleftherios
Papadimitriou is shot but not killed.
January
24 1994: Michalis Vranopoulos, the former governer
of the National Bank of Greece is killed outside his office in Koloniki
July
4 1994: Turkish Diplomat Omer Sipahioglou is shot
and killed in Palio Faliron
March
15 1995: Rocket attack on MEGA TV studios during
the evening news causes damage but no deaths.
February
15 1996: Mortar attack on the US Embassy in Athens.
May
25 1997: Shipowner Costas Peratikos is killed in
Pireaus.
May 17 1999:
Rocket attack on German Ambassador's residence in retaliation for the NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia.
May 17 2000:
Stephen Saunders, the British defense attache is murdered while stopped in traffic
in Filothei.
June 29 2002:
A bomb that detonates in the hands of Savvas Xeros starts a chain reaction of
arrests of Novermber 17th members.