Greek counter-terrorism police units raided a private house in the congested Halandri borough of Athens, the culmination of a meticulous surveillance operation spanning several months.

The officers apprehended four terrorist suspects suspected of planting an improvised explosive device outside the house of Louka Katseli, shadow deputy finance minister for opposition socialist party Pasok. The explosion earlier on September 24 caused material damage but no injuries, Greek Kathimerini said on September 24, 2009.

According to other Greek media, police confiscated a large supply of explosives from the Halandri property. Katseli, married to former Pasok minister Gerasimos Arsenis, was not at his residence at the time of detonation.

Police arrested and questioned a young couple residing at the address in Halandri as well as their two friends, also young people who were apprehended later in the day in connection with the explosion.

Greek authorities have identified the group responsible for this attack as Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, which also targeted the house of former deputy interior minister Panayiotis Hinofotis in the southern Athens seaside borough Palaio Faliro in July 2009.

The attack is seen as politically-motivated, only a day after Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis delivered a speech on September 23 in Alexandroupoli, a town close to the Turkish border, where he tried to persuade voters ahead of the October 4 general elections , that voting for anyone other than New Democracy would be a favourable vote for opposition party Pasok.

The electorate in northeastern Greece, in Alexandoupoli and in Xanthi in particular, where there is strong Turkish ethnic group is of significant political importance to both Pasok and New Democracy and both parties tend to tread carefully during elections whenever there is a Turkish issue at hand.

Yiannis Loulis, ND's campaign adviser, is convinced that the party can still win the elections by persuading undecided votes in the northeast to vote for the conservatives, regardless of the fact that they are currently lagging six per cent behind Pasok in the polls.