May 4, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Thriller with photos of armed Arabs showing off Greek asylum maps


The origin of the photographs in our possession is shrouded in darkness. EL.AS. They show armed men from the Middle East receiving asylum cards and travel documents from Greek authorities.

As the Greek publication TA NEA learned, these same people are depicted in earlier photographs holding weapons and participating in armed organizations in the Middle East.

This visual material is of concern to relevant government agencies, especially in the midst of deadly conflicts in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Because, as can be seen from it, at least two people with suspicious activity and possible connections with ISIS or other Islamist organizations entered our country and… are presented as refugees.

Greek police officials emphasize that these “ostentatious” photographs of Greek travel documents are recent, as they show containers near the metro station on Katehaki Avenue (opposite the headquarters of the Greek police and asylum service) that appeared in the period 2021-2022.

The main question now is to establish the authenticity of these photographs, as well as what happened to the people depicted in them, who are in the process of identification precisely because of fears of terrorist attacks around the world due to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

On alert

And all this despite the fact that Greek and international security and intelligence agencies remain on alert to stop possible actions of Islamic fanatics on European soil following the terrorist attacks in Israel.

In particular, their interest is focused, on the one hand, on “lone wolves”, such as those who have already carried out terrorist attacks in Egypt, France and China, and on the other hand, on the bloody attacks of organized networks of armed people who moved from the Middle East – including , and through our country.

Authorities’ investigations and new fears of passing “militants” in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas

At the same time, Greek security officials do not rule out the possibility that the case that surfaced several months ago of the “amateur” recruitment of Pakistanis in Greece by their compatriots from Iran to commit attacks on targets of interest to Israel was a method of misleading and complacency of the Israeli intelligence services, with the aim of perpetuating the distorted perception that these small-scale plans were the end of actions against Israel.

It should be noted that in 2022, asylum services received 5,624 relevant applications from persons declaring Afghan citizenship, 5,050 from Syrians, 4,572 from Pakistanis, 2,907 from Palestinians and 2,671 from Iraqis.

Total registered in 2022 37,362 asylum seekerswhile the percentage making a positive decision in the first instance was 62.3%.

According to national police officials, in general, foreigners applying for asylum have gone through the legal route of registration with the country’s border control services, interviews and fingerprinting (ed. note: and comparison with international lists of at least 5,000-7,000 suspects in Europol’s jihadist program ” CT-AP Travelers”).

At the same time, to identify suspects, materials from Europol’s digital platform “Check the Web” are used, where videos and photographs of bloody terrorist attacks in the Middle East are studied.

Seven to eight cases per year

However, according to the same sources, every year there are about seven to eight cases of “invisible” armed people who receive asylum, although they previously carried out criminal activities that were not recorded: “There are also dozens of other people who enter uncontrolled and unnoticed country and seek to obtain false documents from schemes operating mainly in Attica in order to move freely throughout Europe.”

Finally, officials from Katehaki Avenue (Greek police headquarters) note that until a few years ago, Greek authorities were busy annually with 100-150 alerts about possible border crossings by armed people from the Middle East (mostly suspected of involvement with ISIS). Recently, this number, they emphasize, has decreased to 30-50, but due to the rapid development of events, it is expected that it will increase again.



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