ATHENS: Greek authorities say the country’s notorious November 17 terrorist group has been effectively disarmed after the discovery, over the weekend, of a second safe-house brimming with weapons in the centre of Athens.

Acting on a tip allegedly given by Savvas Xeros, a November 17 suspect captured after a bungled bomb attack nine days ago, counter-terrorism experts swooped on the hideout to find a cache of anti-tank rockets, bombs, police uniforms and wigs.

The public order minister, Michalis Chrysohoidis, who has headed the campaign to root out Europe’s most elusive terrorists, said he believed the discovery of the arsenal would disable them forever.

In an earlier raid on the group’s main safe-house — a small, ground-floor flat rented by the injured Xeros — police found a plethora of weapons and explosives as well as November 17’s signature .45 colt pistol.

For many years the gun was the group’s preferred assassination tool, used in the killing of the first of its 23 victims, Richard Welch the CIA station chief in Athens, in 1975.

The raids has also thrown up what one insider described as an “unbelievable treasure trove” of documents detailing the 27 years during which the infamous gang has operated with virtual impunity. Some of the documents even outline the minutes of meetings between November 17 members.

Anti-terrorism experts, who are being helped by Scotland Yard detectives, say the evidence will undoubtedly shed light on the murders, including the drive-by death in June 2000 of Brigadier Stephen Saunders, the British embassy defence attache who was the group’s most recent victim.

As many as 60 people are thought to have been questioned by police in connection with November 17.

Under the government’s new witness protection scheme guaranteeing anonymity, hundreds of Greeks have helped police by volunteering information for the first time ever.

On Sunday night sources said the authorities were poised to arrest as many as 10 people, including two men and a woman found in the second safe-house in a dense residential area.

The suspects are all said to have had dealings with Xeros, a 40-year-old iconographer believed by experts to have been a senior operative in the group in charge of logistics and executions.

On Sunday, there were widespread reports that Xeros — who is being heavily guarded in hospital — had begun co-operating with investigators, who are probing ties he is thought to have developed with other terror groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan.

Greek authorities are also hoping that DNA tests on material gathered at both of the safe-houses will lead them to November 17’s leaders.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service