A quarter of a century after it first emerged, Greek officials were still trying to fathom last night the men and motives behind November 17, the revolutionary organisation that has cast Greece as the West's most deadly "terrorist zone".
After an unusually long lull, the infamously elusive gang appeared once again yesterday, assassinating its 23rd victim, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, the British embassy's defence attache.
The gang's mysterious nature has only served to compound the myth that has grown up around it. While France and Germany managed to finally crack down on Action Directe and the Baader Meinhof gang, the durability of November 17 is such that the US State department now considers it Europe's most dangerous terrorist group in operation.
Named after a day in 1973 when Greece's hated military junta killed scores of students in an historic uprising at the Athens Polytechnic, the group emerged two years later with the assassination of Richard Welch, Athens' CIA station chief.
It has targeted Turkish diplomats, US diplomats, junta torturers and prominent Greeks, not least shipping tycoons and media magnates.
From its birth, it has projected itself as an urban revolutionary organisation fighting for the interests of Greece and the little man in the street. It has also saved especial venom for America, the country most blamed for supporting the eight-year-long Colonels' regime.
The gang's meticulous attention to detail in planning attacks makes counter-terrorism experts think Brigadier Saunders was watched closely by the group for weeks - has ensured that it always stays one step ahead of the police.
Unlike any other terrorist group its members - believed to coexist in a series of independent cells - have successfully managed to elude arrest. The failure of Greek authorities to crack the group, whose founding members must be in their fifties, has fuelled speculation that it has insider knowledge, not least links with hardline leftists in the ruling socialist Pasok party.
Its impenetrable nature is such that Western diplomats speak of a "culture of impunity" in the Greek capital. =
Last year, in one of its most spectacular assaults ever, it sent two rockets into the sitting room of the German ambassador's residence, an attack from which the envoy only luckily emerged unscathed.
Last month, the US State Department described Greece as a haven of terrorism "second only to Columbia" in the number of attacks against US personnel and interests.
The group's power was clearly seen last November when President Clinton was forced to reschedule his trip to Athens amidst fears it would use the opportunity to stage an attack.
Over the past year Britain has joined the US in providing Greece with counter-terrorism equipment and expertise, training members of the country's 300-strong antiterrorism squad in the UK.
That, in addition to Tony Blair's strident support for Nato's air bombardment of Kosovo and ongoing sanctions against fellow Orthodox Serbia, were last night raised as possible motives for the decision to assassinate Brigadier Saunders.