Bomb that exploded prematurely in Athens would have caused extensive damage, Greek minister says

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — An improvised bomb that exploded prematurely in a central Athens apartment last week, killing a man and severely wounding a woman in the apartment, would have caused extensive damage to any intended target, Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection said Monday.

Last Thursday’s explosion demolished much of a third-floor apartment in the Athens neighborhood of Ambelokipi and damaged neighboring apartments. Michalis Chrisochoidis, whose ministry is responsible for the police, said municipal authorities had declared the entire residential building uninhabitable due to damage from the blast.

The intended target of the bomb and the planned timing of the attack are still unclear. Greece’s anti-terrorism squad is investigating the incident. Police searching the apartment wreckage, another three homes and a vehicle seized a number of items, including two handguns, ammunition, mobile phones, laptops, flash drives, SIM cards, hand-written notes, wigs and full-face masks, authorities said.

“It was a monstrous bomb with concentrated explosive material,” Chrisochoidis said during a Monday news program on local Skai television. “It would have caused great destruction, because it was very powerful.”

Chrisochoidis said those involved were young people who appeared to aspire to become a new generation of domestic terrorists in Greece.

Authorities announced over the weekend that the man killed in the explosion had been identified as a 36-year-old Greek. He was believed to have been putting the bomb together when it detonated accidentally.

As part of the investigation, police have arrested a 31-year-old man, as well as the 33-year-old woman who was wounded in the blast and who was being treated in hospital under guard. Police are also seeking a 30-year-old woman who reportedly left the country before the explosion.

“I think we are dealing with an attempt of some young people who are aiming to become a third wave, a third generation, of terrorism in Greece,” Chrisochoidis said.

Greece has a decades-long history of far-left extremism involving small urban groups. The major extremist groups that carried out a string of assassinations from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s have been eradicated and their members imprisoned.

They were succeeded by smaller and less efficient groups which mostly staged bomb attacks on symbols of state authority and wealth, but have been largely dormant in recent years. In December 2023, police defused a bomb that had been planted at the national riot police headquarters after an anonymous caller phoned a local newspaper and gave a 45-minute warning about the explosive device.