Woman killed after bombs exploded in her hands

Thessaloniki, Greece (AP) – A woman was killed in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki early Saturday when a bomb that she was wearing exploded in her hands, the police said.

The 38-year-old woman apparently wore the bomb to place in front of a nearby bank around 5 a.m., the police said.

Several shop fronts and vehicles were damaged by the explosion.

The police said that the woman who did not publicly identify had a criminal register in connection with drugs and prostitution and in the past involved at least one robbery and theft. The Department of Organized Crime of the Greek police examined the incident, while the authorities also examined whether the woman possibly had connections to extreme left groups.

Greece has occasionally seen bomb attacks and targeted murders that have been attributed to various groups for organized crime. The country also has a long history of politically motivated violence from the 1970s, with domestic extremist groups carrying out small bomb attacks that normally cause some damage but rarely lead to injuries.

While the most active groups in the 1980s and 1990, whose preferred goals were rather politicians, foreign companies and diplomats, were dismantled, new small groups have been created.

Last year, a man who tried to put together a bomb when the device he made exploded exploded in an apartment in the central arth. A woman in the apartment was seriously injured. It was unclear how her intended goal could have been.

The explosion had prompted the Minister for Citizens' Protection Michaalis Chrisochoidis to warn of an emerging new generation of domestic extremists.

In April, a new group, which described himself as a revolutionary class struggle, claimed the responsibility for a bomb that exploded in central athes near the offices of the Hellenic Train, the Greece railway binding operator and the planting of another bomb near the Ministry of Labor in early February.

The explosion near the train offices led to limited damage to the building and no injuries. It was an anonymous call to local media 40 minutes before the explosion warning in front of the device to evacuate the police and correct them from the area.

The group, who claimed responsibility, said the bomb attack was part of an armed struggle against the state.
The bomb attacks in the train offices came shortly after the second anniversary of Greece's worst railway disaster, in which 57 people were killed and dozens more injured when a freight train and a passenger train that drove into the opposite directions were accidentally placed on the same route.

The fatal accident triggered widespread anger and unveiled serious defects in the Greece railway system, including in security systems. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the accident, some of the relatives of the victims led mass protests against the country's conservative government.