ATHENS—A powerful bomb exploded here early Thursday outside a court building in a central district of the capital, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
According to police sources, the blast occurred at 8:20 am local time at the Court of First Instance, located in the residential Ambelokipi district of the city.
The blast was preceded by a warning telephone call to a newspaper and local television station, allowing authorities time to evacuate nearby buildings.
The explosion could be heard for several kilometers in each direction, causing extensive property damage and blowing out windows across the facade of the court building.
Local media reported that the bomb was located on a motorcycle parked outside the building.
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European Pressphoto Agency
Firefighters try to extinguish fire from a car parked in front of a court in Athens, which was completely destroyed by a bomb explosion.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack comes after a wave of bomb blasts by Greece's various, shadowy urban-guerilla groups in the past two years. It also follows a series of Greek police raids earlier this month that uncovered weapons caches believed to have belonged to one of those groups, Rebel Sect, as well as a string of parcel-bomb attacks in early November by another group, Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei.
More than a dozen suspected members of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group are due to go on trial in January for their role in the parcel bombings.
Earlier this month, an Italian anarchist group, Informal Anarchist Federation, claimed responsibility for a recent spate of parcel-bomb attacks in Rome, saying it was acting in solidarity with its Greek counterparts.
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