Home
Discover Islam
Quran Recitations
Lectures
Fatwa
Articles
Fiqh
E-Books
Women
Boys & Girls 
Ramadan
Fatwa Audios
Month of Mercy
Women
Eed Al- Fitr
Food Recipes
Videos
More parcel bombs may have been sent abroad from Greece, police said on Wednesday as authorities suspended overseas shipments of mail and packages for 48 hours following a wave of attacks on European government targets.
Small bombs exploded at the Swiss and Russian embassies in Athens on Tuesday, a package with explosives was intercepted at the German chancellor's office and another package addressed to the Italian prime minister caught fire when it was checked by authorities, an Italian police source said.
Two suspect packages detonated by police at the cargo terminal of Athens airport on Tuesday evening contained explosives and were addressed to European police organization Europol and the European Court of Justice, police officials said.
"If there are more parcel bombs they must be abroad by now, not in Greece. Courier services have made checks and have not found anything suspect for domestic delivery," a police official, who did not want to be named, said on Wednesday.
"Whatever was sent to embassies here must have been received already, it takes one day for deliveries," the official said.
Another official said police were still investigating and were not aware of any other suspicious packages.
Police have arrested two Greeks, aged 22 and 24, in possession of two bombs including one addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The latest incidents took the total of actual or suspected bombs to 14 since Monday.
One of the two arrested men is suspected to be a member of the Fire Conspiracy Cells, who have staged several attacks on government targets over the past year, police said on Monday.
Greeks have become used to gas canister and bomb attacks against public buildings and police stations in the last two years, as well as anti-capitalist urban guerrilla attacks down the decades.
The wave of bombs may be intended to galvanize an anti-government vote in Sunday's local elections.
Prime Minister George Papandreou's Socialists already fear a backlash against the radical tax hikes, pension freezes and cuts in spending and public sector wages they have imposed to combat the country's debt crisis.
Dozen arrests
The attackers also may want to demonstrate that they are still active after the arrests of more than a dozen suspected members of guerrilla groups this year.
Papandreou vowed to "be merciless to those who attempt in vain to rock social peace with terrorist acts and hurt our country's image internationally during a very difficult period."
The two arrested men were both charged with participating in a terrorist group and with illegal possession of explosives and weapons, a court official said.
No one was injured at the Swiss or Russian embassies, and Greek police said the bombs that had been found were mostly too small to kill anyone. "When the external packaging was removed, the contents burst into flames," a Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Other parcel bombs found on Tuesday included one outside parliament addressed to the Chilean embassy, one each at the Chilean and Bulgarian embassies, and one addressed to the German embassy, at the offices of a courier company.
In Germany, police intercepted a package containing explosives sent from Greece to Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin. Addressed to Merkel personally, the suspect parcel was found in the mailroom of her chancellery while she was in Belgium, and was rendered harmless, the government said.
In Italy, a cargo plane from Athens was made to land at Bologna airport after authorities were alerted that it was carrying a suspect parcel addressed to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The package caught fire as it was checked, an Italian police source said.
Austerity policies
Papandreou, in office for only 13 months, has threatened to call a snap parliamentary election if voters do not back his austerity policies in this weekend's local polls.
Blanka Kolenikova, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, said the austerity program, agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund as a way of rescuing Greece from a debt mountain and near-insolvency, was likely to be the main trigger for the wave of bombs.
"Given that left-wing militants tend to blame the country's fiscal woes on 'the wheels of capitalism', the unpopular cost-cutting measures could see recruits to such groups increasing," she said.
PHOTO CAPTION
Greek policemen escort two suspects in Athens November 2, 2010.
Reuters
Prayer Times
Prayer times for Doha, Qatar 
