During the 1990s, foreign jihadists streamed into Bosnia to wage jihad there. Many of these career warriors have now travelled to Iraq, but evidently not all of them: "Greece has determined that its national security interests are being threatened by Al Qaida-aligned Arab agents in Bosnia." This from Middle East Newsline.
"The Cabinet of Prime Minister Costas Simitis has convened to discuss what officials termed the threat from an estimated 2,000 Bosnian Arabs to the Olympic Games in August 2004. Officials said Western intelligence agencies have assessed that some of those Arab nationals could be training to carry out attacks on Israeli, U.S. or other targets during the Olympics in Athens.
"Officials said the threat of an Al Qaida-related attack will be one of the scenarios in a series of exercises scheduled to take place in February and March 2004. They said the United States has been pressing to revise security arrangements agreed upon a year ago.
"'Greece, as well as every other country, has the fundamental obligation to safeguard its internal and external security,' Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos said. 'And it is evident that military planning for the country's security takes into consideration the simple fact that the country is a member-state of NATO and, consequently, our military planning takes NATO planning into consideration.'"
IIRC, any attack on the Olympics is considered, by international law, an act of war. The A-rabs wouldn't want to count 1972 of course.
Let them try.
Glad to see Greece is finally waking up. Greeks thought themselves immune to terrorism, since they are in friendly terms with the Arabs, and not exactly pro-Israel. They seem to have forgotten the Abu-Nidal ferry boat massacre, or the TWA airplane bombing over Athens in the 1980's, when Greece was providing official government shelter and immunity from prosecution to Arab terrorists.
" They seem to have forgotten the Abu-Nidal ferry boat massacre, or the TWA airplane bombing over Athens in the 1980's, when Greece was providing official government shelter and immunity from prosecution to Arab terrorists. "
Not really accurate. Greece's policy on Arab militant groups proved to be NO DIFFERENT from other "Western European" nations.
Reagan slammed Greece at the very same time he was posturing about not dealing with terrorists, yet very clearly was.
That is no justification for policies on anyone's part, just a clarification that the Greeks were no different than anyone else.