Greek security services raided Athens apartments and found bomb-making equipment Tuesday, detaining nine people on suspected links to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) terrorist group in Turkey ahead of an anticipated visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
"So far nine people have been detained. They are Afghans and Kurds based on their identity papers. Police found jars containing unspecified explosive material and cables to connect to detonators and laptops," a police official told Reuters.
A second police official confirmed authorities were probing links to the DHKP-C, an outlawed group responsible for attacks and suicide bombings in Turkey.
Eight men and a woman were being questioned after the early-morning sweep by anti-terror police at three addresses in two Athens neighborhoods.
Another official told the semi-official Athens News Agency that the case was unconnected to domestic terror groups, and described those questioned as being of Turkish origin.
The operation was ongoing, the official said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to visit Greece on December 7-8, the first to Greece by a Turkish head of state in 65 years.
Greece has long been one of the countries in which the DHKP-C is very active, and the terror group operates a camp, disguised as a refugee camp, located in the town of Lavrion, 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Athens. However, in recent years, the cooperation between the two countries have increased. In 2014, four Turkish men were arrested in Athens on terrorism-related offenses in connection with DHKP-C, after a raid on an Athens apartment that uncovered weapons, explosives and detonators. The operation followed the arrests of five Turks and three Greeks over a speedboat carrying arms that was intercepted in the Aegean Sea.
The move was seen as improving the counter-terrorism cooperation between Turkey and Greece, although the refusal of Greek courts to extradite several suspects overshadowed the efforts.
The DHKP-C, although less influential in Turkey than other terrorist organizations such as the PKK, still represents a considerable threat to the country's security, especially after a recent string of attacks.
The group is an offshoot of a Marxist-Leninist movement that was established in the 1970s. It was founded in the 1990s after it splintered off from a larger group of far-left organizations responsible for a string of attacks that include the assassination of two politicians in 1980, several intelligence officials and Özdemir Sabancı, a member of the Sabancı family, one of the richest families in Turkey owning a large conglomerate of companies.
In addition to attacks against Turkish security forces, the DHKP-C is also responsible for the suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in the capital Ankara that killed a Turkish security guard and injured a journalist in February 2013. It also claimed responsibility for non-lethal rocket attacks targeting the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) headquarters, the Turkish National Police headquarters and a Justice Ministry building in Ankara in 2013.
The DHKP-C was also responsible for killing of Mehmet Selim Kiraz, a prosecutor who was investigating the possible negligence of police in the death of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan during Gezi Park riots. Kiraz was killed in his room at an Istanbul courthouse on March 31, 2015 after two militants took him hostage for several hours.