Anarchists claim bomb attacks
Source: Agencies |
December 25, 2010, Saturday
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ANARCHISTS who sent mail bombs to the Rome embassies of Chile and Switzerland wanted to avenge blows by those countries against their movement, a top Italian security official said yesterday.
Security officials said an Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation had claimed responsibility for Thursday's bomb blasts.
Bomb experts were sent to other embassies in the Italian capital yesterday because embassy employees were nervous about opening a flood of holiday mail and called in the police to inspect suspect packages, Rome police chief Francesco Tagliente said.
Manila envelopes about the size of a videocassette case exploded at the Chilean and Swiss embassies when they were opened about two hours apart on Thursday, seriously wounding an employee at each mission.
Although the twin blasts almost immediately seemed inspired by a spate of parcel bomb mailings by anarchists in Greece last month, Greek police pointed out that the attacks there seemed not intended to cause injury - and none was caused.
In contrast, the Italian attacks seemed intent on at least seriously wounding whoever opened the envelopes, since one of the devices contained an iron bolt that shot into the chest of one of the employees.
Alfredo Mantovano, interior ministry undersecretary, said that the anti-terrorism police said the Swiss were targeted because intensified Swiss-Italian cooperation led to recent arrests of Swiss and Italian anarchists.
A Swiss man and two Italian men suspected of being "eco-terrorists" trying to organize an attack against an IBM research center were arrested in April near Zurich, Italian news reports said. Turin daily La Stampa reported that authorities searching the men's car found explosives and a pamphlet denouncing the multinational's research.
Meanwhile, "Chile was the theater of the death of an anarchist who became a kind of myth for that world" of anarchy, Mantovano said.
He was referring to Mauricio Morales, who was killed when a bomb in a backpack he was carrying blew up in Santiago in 2009.
La Stampa, reporting from Santiago, said that last summer Chilean authorities identified an Italian as being the financial backer of Chilean anarchist groups suspected in a series of attacks.
Security officials said an Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation had claimed responsibility for Thursday's bomb blasts.
Bomb experts were sent to other embassies in the Italian capital yesterday because embassy employees were nervous about opening a flood of holiday mail and called in the police to inspect suspect packages, Rome police chief Francesco Tagliente said.
Manila envelopes about the size of a videocassette case exploded at the Chilean and Swiss embassies when they were opened about two hours apart on Thursday, seriously wounding an employee at each mission.
Although the twin blasts almost immediately seemed inspired by a spate of parcel bomb mailings by anarchists in Greece last month, Greek police pointed out that the attacks there seemed not intended to cause injury - and none was caused.
In contrast, the Italian attacks seemed intent on at least seriously wounding whoever opened the envelopes, since one of the devices contained an iron bolt that shot into the chest of one of the employees.
Alfredo Mantovano, interior ministry undersecretary, said that the anti-terrorism police said the Swiss were targeted because intensified Swiss-Italian cooperation led to recent arrests of Swiss and Italian anarchists.
A Swiss man and two Italian men suspected of being "eco-terrorists" trying to organize an attack against an IBM research center were arrested in April near Zurich, Italian news reports said. Turin daily La Stampa reported that authorities searching the men's car found explosives and a pamphlet denouncing the multinational's research.
Meanwhile, "Chile was the theater of the death of an anarchist who became a kind of myth for that world" of anarchy, Mantovano said.
He was referring to Mauricio Morales, who was killed when a bomb in a backpack he was carrying blew up in Santiago in 2009.
La Stampa, reporting from Santiago, said that last summer Chilean authorities identified an Italian as being the financial backer of Chilean anarchist groups suspected in a series of attacks.
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