Xeros’s frequent contacts with Muslim Brothers organization
This photograph of Savvas Xeros, shown here in traditional white Muslim garb, has provided the basis for further investigation of the terrorist organization November 17’s possible links abroad, its various affiliations and the influences exerted on it during its long years of activity. Here Xeros was photographed somewhere in Sudan, most probably at an event held by a fundamentalist organization, the Muslim Brothers, that gave rise to the Palestinian group Hamas and prominent members of Al Qaeda. It was known from the outset that the 40-year-old icon painter and son of an Orthodox priest, the guardian of November 17’s weapons and symbols who was injured in Piraeus over a week ago, had traveled at least three times to Sudan. The country had offered asylum to Osama Bin Laden as well as the notorious «Carlos the Jackal,» whose group tried to blow up the car of the then-Saudi Arabian ambassador to Greece in the Athens suburb of Psychico in April 1983. The security police are in a position to know that Xeros traveled repeatedly to Sudan over the past two years, supposedly on business, with the cooperation of his friend Maki El Daou, who was his associate for the past 12-13 years. According to counterterrorism intelligence, on one of his trips Xeros spent a lengthy stay at a camp run by the Muslim Brothers. This information, to the extent that it can be fully corroborated – which is something being worked on by diplomatic and secret services – has put another slant on the question of Greek terrorism. Until now there had been no indication that November 17 had developed such relationships with foreign terrorist groups. What the authorities did know, but never really investigated, was the contact between Carlos’s group and members of the Revolutionary People’s Struggle (ELA) in the early 1980s. According to records kept by Johannes Weinrich, one of Carlos’s top men, Greek supporters or members of armed militant groups provided assistance, cover and explosives for the attack against the Saudi ambassador. By coincidence, Carlos was handed over to the French authorities by the regime in Sudan, which for years had given him asylum. So it is not unlikely, if it is confirmed that Xeros had links with the Muslim Brothers, that this link originated in the collaboration between Greek terrorists and Carlos. According to one version of events, Carlos may have provided credentials and contacts in Sudan to one of the original members of November 17, who in turn passed them on to the younger, nascent operational, Savvas Xeros. If that is so, then the case is no longer purely a Greek affair but could have international complications. This would be an entirely different state of affairs, involving influence from foreign centers and perhaps actions carried out by order from elsewhere, contracted operations for purposes that went beyond the ideology of the (November 17) proclamations, having to do with more mundane spheres of activity. Perhaps these ideas are premature, but events appear to have taken on their own momentum and now seem to be unstoppable. The Greek authorities are trying to open up channels of communication with the hardline regime in Khartoum, but have not yet met with much success as the Sudanese avoid giving Westerners any information on armed terrorist groups that are or have been enjoying their hospitality. So for the moment, there are only the first impressions made by Xeros’s frequent trips to Sudan and the information that he sought and obtained close contacts with the most violent purveyors of international terrorism. The rest is still to come.
