Letter bombs sent to prominent European Parliament members exploded in Brussels and the British city of Manchester on Monday, and Belgium said a further seven suspect packages were intercepted.
Both bombs that went off were posted in Bologna, Italy, as was another suspected bomb intercepted in Brussels, leading to immediate assumptions of a link with a string of letter bombs sent from there last month to European figures and institutions.
PHOTO: AFP
No one was injured in Monday's two blasts.
The Italian Interior Ministry said Rome will lead a multinational task force to investigate the spate of letter bombs which have been sent from Italy's central city of Bologna.
After a meeting in Rome with anti-terrorism experts from Europol and six European countries, the ministry said the task force would be created to probe anarchist movements in countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece for the next two months and make recommendations to police.
Italian police suspect anarchists opposed to what they called the "new European order" were behind the letter bomb campaign which began last month when a parcel exploded in the hands of European Commission President Romano Prodi.
The bombs that exploded on Monday were sent to Hans-Gert Poettering, head of the largest political group in the parliament, in Brussels, and to Gary Titley, leader of British Labour Party members of the parliament, in Manchester.
Another package was delivered to a Spanish member of Poetter-ing's European People's Party, Jose Ignacio Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, and sent for tests by Belgian police.
"It is not to be excluded that there may be other packages," said David Harley, spokesman for the President of the European Parliament.
Belgian Interior Minister Patrick Dewael said in a statement that five suspect envelopes were discovered on different floors of the parliament building in Brussels on Monday, while two more suspect packages were intercepted at a post office in Antwerp.
Harley said in a statement that Belgian police were working with parliament's security services to rescan tens of thousands of packages received in recent weeks.
It was not immediately clear when the packages arrived. EU institutions have been closed for Christmas and New Year, and Harley said they arrived during the last few days.
A series of letter bombs were sent to European officials late last month. On Dec. 31, an Italian prosecutor said authorities had blocked mail sent from the Bologna region of northern Italy and addressed to EU bodies.
He was speaking after four devices in four days were mailed from Bologna -- to European Commission President Romano Prodi, European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet and the EU police agencies Europol and Eurojust, which help fight cross-border crime. No one was injured by any of them.
An Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation had threatened a campaign against the "new European order" just days before the first device targeted Prodi on Dec. 27.
Harley said the bomb that went off in Poettering's office "sounded very like the one sent to Prodi's home."
Bologna's chief attorney said he was not surprised by Monday's bombs. "Just yesterday I said the only thing that was missing was [a bomb] against the legislative power. We were expecting it," Enrico Di Nicola told Radio 24.
Chief European Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinen, speaking shortly before news of the device at Poettering's office was confirmed, said security was sufficient.
But Poettering told German mass circulation daily Bild that security would have to be stepped up.
"Until now only post to EU President Prodi was checked. Now it's clear that as of straight away all mail to EU deputies must be checked," he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS