A group of anarchists said they were behind the June 2 firebomb attack on the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki and a firebomb assault on riot police trying to protect it, the latest in a spate of violence in the country critics blamed on the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA for not condemning and implicitly condoning.

A statement posted on an anarchist website, signed as “insurgents,” said that “we choose to stare the real enemy in the eye, to stare its armed guards in the eye and burn them. Cops are a first obstacle, they are the armed guard of the establishment. And they are not indestructible,” the statement said.
“They are a target because of the role they have chosen to undertake in public life. They are protectors of the state and of the masters; they are always prepared to suppress every effort for rebellion or revolution.”

Police holding banners protested against what they called “murderous attacks” against their colleagues and accused the state of “indifference,” with others saying Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is not going after anarchists in a bid to re-establish Leftist credentials after surrendering to international creditors and banks in imposing more austerity measures he swore to reject, hitting workers, pensioners and the poor the hardest.

Police authorities said that since 2010, riot police units guarding the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki have been attacked at least 17 times without anyone ever getting arrested without explaining why if there were so many police present.

The head of the local union of police officers, Theodoros Tsairidis, said that riot police units have become targets and they are frequently attacked in Athens, especially in the anarchist hotbed of Exarchia where there is a major police station.

Major opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said SYRIZA and Tsipras have abandoned Athens to anarchists with the Leftist party riddled with anarchist and terrorist sympathizers and police have said they’re as much under orders not to arrest anyone.