M. Continuo
Greece suspends air freight after bombs found
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece suspended overseas shipment of mail and packages for 48 hours on Wednesday, hoping to stop militants sending more parcel bombs in addition to more than a dozen already sent to governments and embassies.
Small bombs exploded at the Swiss and Russian embassies in Athens on Tuesday, a parcel with explosives was intercepted at the German chancellor's office and another package addressed to Italy's prime minister caught fire when it was checked.
The bombs may be intended to spur an anti-government vote in Sunday's local elections in protest against Prime Minister George Papandreou's austerity plan, agreed with the EU and International Monetary Fund to deal with Greece's debt mountain.
"Such brainless and irresponsible actions aim to damage the Greek people's great effort to put the country and its economy back on its feet ... they will fail, we will not bend," said Papandreou, who has vowed to be "merciless" with militants.
Papandreou, in office for only 13 months, has threatened to call a parliamentary election if voters do not back him.
There have been a total of 14 actual or suspected bombs since Monday but only one casualty, a courier employee who was slightly injured when a bomb exploded in her hands.
"If there are more parcel bombs they must be abroad by now, not in Greece. Courier services have made checks and have not found anything suspect for domestic delivery," a police official said on Wednesday.
Police said members of the public had come forward with information about two men who have been arrested, while investigators searched their homes.
Police arrested the two Greeks, aged 22 and 24, in possession of two bombs, one addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
One of the two arrested men is suspected of being a member of the Fire Conspiracy Cells, who have staged several attacks on government targets over the past year, police said.
Two suspect packages detonated by police at the cargo terminal of Athens airport on Tuesday contained explosives and were addressed to European police organisation Europol and the European Court of Justice, police officials said.
TRIGGER FOR BOMBS
Greece's austerity plan was likely to be the main trigger for the bombs, said Blanka Kolenikova, an analyst at IHS Global Insight.
"Given that left-wing militants tend to blame the country's fiscal woes on 'the wheels of capitalism', the unpopular cost-cutting measures could see recruits to such groups increasing," she said.
Greece, which has seen anti-capitalist attacks down the decades, has been rocked by gas canister and bomb attacks claimed by leftist militants since the police killing of a teenager in Athens in 2008 sparked the worst riots in decades.
The attackers may also want to demonstrate that they are still active after the arrests of more than a dozen suspected members of guerrilla groups this year.
"The new terrorists, and those that possibly instruct them, aim at creating a negative image for the country abroad," said the liberal Ta Nea newspaper in an editorial, reflecting concern that Greece will be tagged as a country beset by social unrest.
NO MERCY
Papandreou said he would "be merciless to those who attempt in vain to rock social peace with terrorist acts and hurt our country's image internationally during a very difficult period."
The two arrested men were both charged with participating in a terrorist group and with illegal possession of explosives and weapons, a court official said.
No one was injured at the Swiss or Russian embassies, and Greek police said the bombs that had been found were mostly too small to kill anyone.
Other parcel bombs found on Tuesday included one outside parliament addressed to the Chilean embassy, one each at the Chilean and Bulgarian embassies, and one addressed to the German embassy, at the offices of a courier company.
In Germany, police intercepted a package containing explosives sent from Greece to Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin. Addressed to Merkel personally, the suspect parcel was found in the mailroom of her chancellery while she was in Belgium, and was rendered harmless, the government said.
In Italy, a cargo plane from Athens was forced to land at Bologna airport after authorities were alerted that it was carrying a suspect parcel addressed to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The package caught fire as it was checked, an Italian police source said.
Greece's stock market took the attacks in its stride, and shares closed little changed on Tuesday and were also flat on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Harry Papachristou, Angeliki Koutantou, Yannis Behrakis and Ingrid Melander; Writing by Peter Millership; Editing by Kevin Liffey)