iwwobblie
31st December 2003, 01:03
Mail Bomb Probe Focuses on Anarchists
Tue Dec 30, 2:00 PM ET
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Investigators zeroed in on an Italian anarchist group Tuesday as the likely source of four small bombs mailed to prominent European organizations in recent days.
At the same time, German police sealed off streets around a military hospital in the city of Hamburg, acting on a tip from the United States that al-Qaida-linked extremists planned car bomb attacks against the facility.
The letter bombs have caused no injuries but they revived memories of Europe before Sept. 11, when political radicals were more feared than Islamic militants.
The latest package was intercepted in The Hague (news - web sites) on Tuesday at Eurojust, a European law enforcement group. Eurojust and nearby offices were evacuated while a bomb squad was called in to disarm the explosive. The mailroom of the International Criminal Court, located in the same building, was also searched.
Two mail bombs were foiled Monday: one addressed to the European Central Bank president in Frankfurt, Germany, and one to the director of Europol, a police intelligence agency based in The Hague.
On Saturday, European Union (news - web sites) Commission President Romano Prodi opened a package in Bologna, Italy, that burst into flames. He was unhurt.
No arrests were made, but Bologna police spokesman Luigi Persico said police suspect the same Italian anarchist group is responsible for all the attacks. He said Italian police were coordinating investigations with colleagues in other countries and working with police forces "from half of Europe."
An Italian group calling itself the "Informal Anarchic Federation" took credit for setting two additional time bombs that exploded outside Prodi's house on Dec. 21, causing a small fire.
In a letter to left-leaning Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica on Dec. 23, the group said it had planted the bombs to "hit at the apparatus of control that is repressive and leading the democratic show that is the new European order."
The attacks were carried out to make sure Prodi, a former Italian premier, "knows that the maneuvers have only begun to get close to him and others like him," the letter said.
Both the letter bomb sent to the European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet and a package bomb sent to Europol director Jurgen Storbeck Monday were postmarked from Bologna.
Persico said the Bologna addresses from which the packages were sent were false.
In the terror threat Tuesday against the German military hospital, an American intelligence agency passed on information pointing to Ansar al-Islam, a group based in northern Iraq (news - web sites) suspected of recruiting in Europe for suicide missions in Iraq, said Hamburg's top security official, Dirk Nockemann.
Hamburg was home to an al-Qaida cell that included three of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide pilots, and police in the northern city said state officials evaluated Tuesday's threat as "very serious."
Police swarmed the area around the hospital. At the nearby Wandsbek-Gartenstadt subway station, officers with submachine-guns and bulletproof vests checked the identity cards of residents trying to reach their homes.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, there have been no major terrorist attacks in Europe, though national intelligence agencies have said Islamic extremists are active. In September 2003, 18 Muslims were convicted in Belgium of belonging to a terrorist recruitment ring — and one suspect for plotting to blow up a military base where American soldiers are stationed.
Like many European countries, Italy has a history of domestic attacks by political radicals, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, when far-left and far-right groups carried out numerous attacks.
A spokesman for German federal prosecutor's office in Frankfurt said Tuesday they were working with Italian police and had launched an investigation against unknown suspects for attempted murder and forming a terrorist organization.
"We looking at members of an Italian group that are close to the anarchist spectrum," said spokesman Harmut Scheider.
A British member of the European Parliament said staff had not been alerted to a broader letter bomb threat. Police in France said they are unaware of any suspicious letters being intercepted.
Copenhagen Police Chief Per Larsen said there were no incidents in Denmark, but the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency had been told to be alert for suspicious packages.
"It seems that someone is angry at the EU system," Larsen said.
Tue Dec 30, 2:00 PM ET
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Investigators zeroed in on an Italian anarchist group Tuesday as the likely source of four small bombs mailed to prominent European organizations in recent days.
At the same time, German police sealed off streets around a military hospital in the city of Hamburg, acting on a tip from the United States that al-Qaida-linked extremists planned car bomb attacks against the facility.
The letter bombs have caused no injuries but they revived memories of Europe before Sept. 11, when political radicals were more feared than Islamic militants.
The latest package was intercepted in The Hague (news - web sites) on Tuesday at Eurojust, a European law enforcement group. Eurojust and nearby offices were evacuated while a bomb squad was called in to disarm the explosive. The mailroom of the International Criminal Court, located in the same building, was also searched.
Two mail bombs were foiled Monday: one addressed to the European Central Bank president in Frankfurt, Germany, and one to the director of Europol, a police intelligence agency based in The Hague.
On Saturday, European Union (news - web sites) Commission President Romano Prodi opened a package in Bologna, Italy, that burst into flames. He was unhurt.
No arrests were made, but Bologna police spokesman Luigi Persico said police suspect the same Italian anarchist group is responsible for all the attacks. He said Italian police were coordinating investigations with colleagues in other countries and working with police forces "from half of Europe."
An Italian group calling itself the "Informal Anarchic Federation" took credit for setting two additional time bombs that exploded outside Prodi's house on Dec. 21, causing a small fire.
In a letter to left-leaning Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica on Dec. 23, the group said it had planted the bombs to "hit at the apparatus of control that is repressive and leading the democratic show that is the new European order."
The attacks were carried out to make sure Prodi, a former Italian premier, "knows that the maneuvers have only begun to get close to him and others like him," the letter said.
Both the letter bomb sent to the European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet and a package bomb sent to Europol director Jurgen Storbeck Monday were postmarked from Bologna.
Persico said the Bologna addresses from which the packages were sent were false.
In the terror threat Tuesday against the German military hospital, an American intelligence agency passed on information pointing to Ansar al-Islam, a group based in northern Iraq (news - web sites) suspected of recruiting in Europe for suicide missions in Iraq, said Hamburg's top security official, Dirk Nockemann.
Hamburg was home to an al-Qaida cell that included three of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide pilots, and police in the northern city said state officials evaluated Tuesday's threat as "very serious."
Police swarmed the area around the hospital. At the nearby Wandsbek-Gartenstadt subway station, officers with submachine-guns and bulletproof vests checked the identity cards of residents trying to reach their homes.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, there have been no major terrorist attacks in Europe, though national intelligence agencies have said Islamic extremists are active. In September 2003, 18 Muslims were convicted in Belgium of belonging to a terrorist recruitment ring — and one suspect for plotting to blow up a military base where American soldiers are stationed.
Like many European countries, Italy has a history of domestic attacks by political radicals, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, when far-left and far-right groups carried out numerous attacks.
A spokesman for German federal prosecutor's office in Frankfurt said Tuesday they were working with Italian police and had launched an investigation against unknown suspects for attempted murder and forming a terrorist organization.
"We looking at members of an Italian group that are close to the anarchist spectrum," said spokesman Harmut Scheider.
A British member of the European Parliament said staff had not been alerted to a broader letter bomb threat. Police in France said they are unaware of any suspicious letters being intercepted.
Copenhagen Police Chief Per Larsen said there were no incidents in Denmark, but the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency had been told to be alert for suspicious packages.
"It seems that someone is angry at the EU system," Larsen said.