Anarchists Send Out Parcel Bombs

Spanish and Italian police are hunting a group of anarchists behind four parcel bombs sent to media outlets and Iberia airline, and threatened attacks on the world motorcycle grand prix champion, Valentino Rossi.

Rossi is now under police protection after a fourth parcel bomb, addressed to the Rome offices of the Spanish airline, was found and defused. A possible fifth bomb was found at the Italian state broadcaster RAI last night.

Notes accompanying the bombs included threats to Rossi, and were signed by a group known as "the five Cs".

The notes warned people not to travel with Iberia over Christmas and demanded the release of all Spanish prisoners who have spent more than 20 years in jail or who are terminally ill.

Targets last week included the newspaper El Pais in Barcelona, and, twice, the Iberia offices in Milan. Police said all the bombs were of similar design and were posted in Italy.

Loredana Giglio, an Italian state prosecutor, said the "simple but effective" bombs could have killed anybody who opened them.

The "five Cs" come from the Spanish translation of the group's name: "Unit against jails, capitalism, prison officers and cells".

The group, or people close to it, was allegedly behind half-a-dozen letter bombs sent to Spanish businesses, newspapers and to the prison guards' union in recent years.

Italian police said it may also be related to a group called Solidarity International which attempted to bomb a church in Milan two years ago.

"The five Cs" supports a violent group of Italian anarchists, known as "the Nose gang" after the masks they wore, who were jailed in Spain for more than 50 years each for a series of bank robberies which left two policewomen dead.

Their reputation for extreme violence had already spread across France and Italy, where they were accused of carrying out a series of kidnappings in which one victim allegedly had an ear cut off and then posted home.

Parcel bombs sent by a Spanish anarchist to journalists at the newspapers El Mundo, ABC and La Razon two years ago were also an apparent show of support for the gang.

Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, warned last week of an escalation in "terror-related activity" after two parcel bombs went off near police headquarters in Genoa.

Responsibility for the bombs was claimed by the "July 20th Brigade", named after the date of the G8 summit in Genoa last year where a protester was shot dead by police.