Italy: Anarchists wanted revenge on Chile, Swiss

[The Straight Story]

Italy: Anarchists wanted revenge on Chile, Swiss

ROME — 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 Friday.

Bomb experts were sent to other embassies in the Italian capital Friday because embassy employees nervous about opening a flood of holiday mail called police to inspect packages, Rome police chief Francesco Tagliente said. No new devices had been found.

Manila envelopes about the size of a videocassette case exploded at the Chilean and Swiss embassies when they were opened about two hours apart Thursday, seriously wounding an employee at each mission who handle mail. A Chilean man lost two fingers and risked the loss of vision in one eye while a Swiss Embassy employee had serious hand injuries, doctors said.

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 at least one of the devices contained an iron bolt that shot into the chest of one of the employees.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40802318