Greek Police Round Up Terror Suspects

ATHENS, Greece (Dec. 4) -- Greek police on Saturday detained a batch of terrorism suspects following a flurry of raids and the discovery of a large weapons cache in a small garage on the outskirts of Athens.

Authorities in Athens said police were probing at least a dozen suspected hideouts across the greater Athens area as part of a terrorism crackdown that kicked off early Saturday.

Greek media reported that at least five terror suspects had been detained during the operation but authorities remained tight-lipped.

"This is just the start of the operation," Greece's National Police spokesman Athanassios Kokkalakis told AOL News. "The number of suspects taken in for questioning is constantly changing."

The crackdown marks Greece's latest bid to bust a bevy of homegrown terror groups acting with impunity since the breakup of the November 17, the country's most deadly terrorist organization, in 2002.

Police have refused to link the latest round up of terror suspects with a specific group, but Kokkalakis ruled out any foreign involvement.

"Their identities have yet to be disclosed," he said. "None thus far, though, are foreign nationals."

On Saturday, the Athens-based In.gr website reported that police had also raided a flat leased by four Cypriot nationals. In an earlier raid, counter-terrorism police discovered stockpiles of submachine guns, hand-grenades, explosives and ammunition in a house garage in the residential district of Nea Smyrni, five miles from central Athens.

Last month, an extreme left group called the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire claimed responsibility for staging a spree of mail bomb attacks targeting diplomatic missions in Athens as well as European leaders and institutions.

Most of the 14 packages, including three addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were detonated and destroyed. Still, the plot sent shock waves across the Continent as the European Union struggled to shield its postal system after two U.S.-bound airplanes from Yemen were found to be carrying powerful explosives in a plot apparently tied to al-Qaida.

Security experts suggest the weapons cache discovered Saturday could be linked to the Sect of Revolutionaries, a militant and deadly band of terrorists that surfaced in 2009 and is believed to possess large quantities of weapons. The group claimed responsibility earlier this year for the mafia-style assassination of a 37-year-old journalist.

"The ballistics reports will determine whether any of the weapons found [Saturday] were used in previous attacks," said Kokkalakis. "The findings will be crucial."