News In Brief
| Athens
US had warning of terror in Greece before killings
The assassination of a member of the American military mission in Athens Tuesday followed an intelligence report last week that US military personnel in Greece might soon be the target of terrorist attacks.
US Navy Capt. George Tsantes and his Greek civilian driver were murdered as they drove to the office. Captain Tsantes was chief of the naval section of JUSMAG, the joint US military aid group in Greece which provides technical help and training to the Greek armed forces.
Last Thursday American bases in Greece were placed on alert and barricaded after the US Air Force headquarters in Ramstein, West Germany, received intelligence that a terrorist attack similar to the bombing in Beirut against Marine headquarters there might be in the works against US forces in Greece.
Tuesday's terrorist attack was the third in Athens in less than three months. On Nov. 7, two Jordanian government officials were murdered while shopping. A group calling itself the Arab Revolutionary Brigade claimed responsibility. On Aug. 20, a resident of Athens said to be an officer in the Palestine Liberation Organization was shot to death.
Greek police said Tuesday that no group or person had yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday's killings.
