3 Killed by Car Bomb on Cyprus Bridge : Meant for Israeli Embassy; Police Had Chased Vehicle Away

A car bomb intended for the Israeli Embassy blew up today on a bridge minutes after police had chased the car away from the embassy. Three people were killed and 15 wounded.

The semiofficial Cyprus News Agency said an Arab man who owned the explosives-packed car was arrested while trying to run away from the scene.

A caller claiming to represent terrorist Abu Nidal’s group told NBC-TV in New York that Nidal’s organization was responsible for the bombing. NBC News Editor Michael Wilson quoted the caller as saying it was the first of future attacks against Israeli targets.

Abu Nidal, whose real name is Sabry Banna, has been accused by Israeli, Arab and Western intelligence agencies of directing scores of terrorist attacks. They include simultaneous assaults at the Rome and Vienna airports Dec. 27, 1985, that killed 20 people.

His group, Fatah-Revolutionary Council, broke in 1976 with Fatah, the mainstream guerrilla faction led by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat.

Israeli Ambassador Aharon Lopez said that windows were shattered in the Israeli Embassy but that no one there was injured.

The Mitsubishi Pajero automobile exploded and disintegrated in the middle of the bridge on a main highway, less than 200 yards from the embassy. The explosion set four other vehicles on the bridge ablaze.

A police statement said a briefcase containing a remote-control detonating device was found about 200 yards from the site of the blast.

The statement said the car’s driver and a Greek Cypriot woman who was in a car immediately behind were killed. Another Greek Cypriot, Andreas Frangos, a retired diplomat, was in another nearby car and died of his wounds in a hospital a few hours later.

Fifteen other people were taken to Nicosia General Hospital with various wounds, hospital officials said.

The news agency said the arrested Arab, whom it did not name, had arrived on the island March 21.

Later in the day, scores of policemen converged on a Nicosia apartment building where the man lived and searched it.

Police said the car with the bomb had a foreign visitor’s temporary Cyprus registration plates and had twice tried to park outside the four-story Israeli Embassy on a narrow side street.

Cypriot police guards told the driver that parking was forbidden, and the car sped off toward the Grivas Avenue bridge. The explosion came a minute later, the statement said.

On Monday, police arrested a Lebanese at Larnaca airport who was carrying a silencer-equipped pistol and two full ammunition magazines hidden in an audiocassette player.

The arrested man, Hassan Moussa, 22, had just arrived on a Middle East Airlines flight from Beirut and the pistol was discovered during an X-ray check. Moussa was ordered in custody for eight days by a Larnaca court on Tuesday, pending the completion of police investigations.

Police prosecutor Andreas Charalambous told the court that Moussa admitted that he had arrived in Cyprus “to commit a crime” but did not give more details.