ATHENS, Greece — Greek police foiled four attempted parcel bomb attacks Monday, allegedly targeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and three embassies in Athens, after one of the devices exploded at a delivery service, leaving a worker hospitalized with burns.
Motorcycle police later detained two Greek men, aged 22 and 24, several hundred meters from the blast site in central Athens.
Police said the men were carrying handguns and bullets in waist pouches, and one of them wore a bulletproof vest, a wig and a baseball cap. The suspects have not yet been charged.
Police said domestic political extremists were suspected, and one of the two men detained had been wanted in connection with a Greek radical anarchist group. Authorities said the bombs were not particularly powerful, and no link was made with the Yemen-based mail bomb plot.
Police released photographs of the two suspects late Monday, but did not identify them.
Parts of the city center were cordoned off for more than an hour around midday as the three unexploded bombs, found at a different delivery service and in the suspects' backpacks, were defused in a series of controlled explosions.
Beyond Sarkozy, the targets were the embassies of Mexico, The Netherlands and Belgium, police said. The return address labels included the names of a senior government official, a Greek charity, and a well-known Greek criminologist, police said.
They said the one that exploded was addressed to the Mexican Embassy. The one addressed to the Dutch Embassy was found and defused at a delivery service, police said. The other two – the one addressed to the Belgian Embassy and the one addressed to Sarkozy – were found on the suspects, police said.
Police were searching other courier services and post offices to check whether other parcel bombs had been sent.
