Letter Bomb Is Intercepted at The Hague

A fourth letter bomb in a series sent to prominent European targets was intercepted Tuesday at the law enforcement group Eurojust in The Hague, and investigators zeroed in on an Italian anarchist group as the possible source.

Eurojust and nearby offices were evacuated while a bomb squad was called in to disarm the explosive. The mailroom of the International Criminal Court, located in the same building, also was searched.

None of the bombs has caused injury. Two mail bombings were foiled Monday. One bomb was addressed to the European Central Bank president in Frankfurt, Germany, and the other to the director of Europol, a police intelligence agency based in The Hague.

On Saturday, European Union Commission President Romano Prodi opened a package in Bologna, Italy, that burst into flames. He was unhurt.

No arrests had been made, but Bologna police spokesman Luigi Persico said authorities suspected that an Italian anarchist group was responsible for all the attacks.

He said Italian police were coordinating investigations with colleagues in other countries and working with police forces “from half of Europe.”

An Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchic Federation took responsibility for setting two additional time bombs that exploded near Prodi’s house Dec. 21, causing a small fire.

In a letter to left-leaning Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica on Dec. 23, the group said it had planted the bombs to target “the new European order.”

Both the letter bomb sent to European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and the package bomb sent to Europol director Jurgen Storbeck were postmarked from Bologna. Persico said the return addresses were false.

Like many European countries, Italy has a history of domestic attacks by political radicals, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.