Experts Say Greek Verdicts Don't Dispel Olympic Threat

Now that 15 members of a Greek radical group are behind bars and facing long sentences after being convicted Monday of a nearly three-decade rampage of bombings and assassinations, Greece is assuring the world that the Olympic Games here next summer will be safe. But terrorism experts in the United States, Israel and Greece say the verdicts do little to address the bigger security threat to the Olympics, which comes from international terror organizations like Al Qaeda, not home-grown militants like those from the outlaw gang known as November 17. Nor are they ready to discount a lingering risk from this group, which, though badly weakened by the arrest of one of its founders and its chief assassin, is still thought to have members at large. “The Greek government thinks this was a big success for them, but to my mind that is very much exaggerated,” said Shabtai Shavit, a former head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. “One cannot rule out the possibility that somewhere there are still operatives of this organization thinking, plotting and planning to make havoc of an event like the Games.” Full Story