Anarchists in Thessaloniki have just claimed separate January 2022 attacks on the personal vehicle and apartment building belonging to two men alleged by the perpetrators to be members of the neo-fascist organization, Sacred Company.
On January 10th, a parked car belonging to a former soldier of the Hellenic Army with known ties to far-right wing movements was destroyed by an arson attack, in which the attackers placed a lit incendiary device in the vehicle’s cab, before fleeing. In the batch-claim taking responsibility for both attacks, the authors dedicate the January 10 attack to the police eviction of a 34-year-old squat in Aristotle University’s Thessaloniki campus, Biologica.
On January 27th, an improvised incendiary device (IID) constructed from either butane or propane gas (or a mix) canisters was placed outside the entrance of another man’s apartment building, this individual also alleged to be a member of the fascist Sacred Company. The IID was successfully detonated and caused damage to the building’s exterior. The authors attribute this second attack to their own annual observation on the anniversary of the 1996 Imia/Kardak Crisis—in which Greece and Turkey nearly went to war over an uninhabited island in the Aegean. The anniversary of Imia and the death of three Hellenic Navy officers during the incident is memorialized by the Greek far-right every January.
Following the attack claims, the communique urges further direct action against fascists:
We call upon the world of militant anti-fascism to take action. The days when fascists will act and move undisturbed must end. Whether they are called ΕΝΕΘ or Sacred Company or whether they are in the western part of the city or the eastern part they must be crushed in every neighbourhood.
“ΕΝΕΘ” refers to a fascist movement in Thessaloniki that has been particularly militant in recent years, the Nationalistic Youth of Thessaloniki. ΕΝΕΘ emerged as Greece’s neo-Nazi party-cum-militia, Golden Dawn, was dismantled following a trial verdict in which they were labeled a criminal organization. (Most of Golden Dawn’s leadership remains behind bars after they were determined to have directly ordered the 2013 assassination of anti-fascist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas.)