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‘Pure Terrorism’: Bombing Outside Italian School Kills Teen Girl, Wounds Others

Bombing Outside Italian School Kills Teen Girl, Wounds Others

Image source: Reuters

ROME (AP) — A bomb exploded on Saturday outside an Italian high school named after the wife of an assassinated anti-Mafia prosecutor, killing one student and wounding at least seven others, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and police were trying to determine who had planted the bomb. But an anti-Mafia prosecutor said it didn’t appear to be the kind of attack that organized crime has carried out in Italy, and the bombing also followed a spate of attacks against Italian officials and government or public buildings by a group of anarchists.

The device went off a few minutes before 8 a.m. in the Adriatic port town of Brindisi in the country’s south just as students milled outside, chatting and getting ready for class at the mainly all-girls Francesca Laura Morvillo Falcone vocational institute. Saturday is a school day in much of Italy.

The school – which prepares students for jobs in fashion, tourism and social services – is named in honor of Morvillo, who died with her husband, anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, in a 1992 highway bombing in Sicily by the Cosa Nostra.

The student killed by the bomb was Melissa Bassi, 16, known to her friends in Brindisi for her sunny smile and dream of becoming a fashion designer, said Franco Scoditti, the mayor of the nearby town of Mesagne. She died of her wounds at a hospital, said Brindisi civil protection agency official Fabiano Amati.

One of the shaken students who witnessed the attack told reporters that a wounded girl, her hair charred, screamed the name “Melissa, Melissa” when she realized her friend was severely hurt. Bassi, along with several friends, had just gotten off a bus from Mesagne that took them to their school.

Amati said at least seven students were hospitalized, but some news reports put the figure at 10.

Graziella Di Bella, the health director at Perrino Hospital, said most of them suffered burns and shrapnel-like wounds, and several were undergoing surgery.

`’The explosion sent out fragments and flames … pieces of iron,” Di Bella told Sky TG24 TV. She said four psychologists were working with the students. `’One of the (injured) girls asked me: `What do we have to do with this?” Di Bella said, adding the students were feeling a sense of `’disorientation, terror” and anger.

Bombing Outside Italian School Kills Teen Girl, Wounds Others

AP

Bombing Outside Italian School Kills Teen Girl, Wounds Others

Image source: EPA

“It’s pure terrorism,” said Italy’s national anti-Mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso after consulting in Brindisi with investigators. He sounded angry as he left the scene of the bombing. `’May no one touch our kids!” he shouted as he got into a car.

Dr. Paola Ciannamea, a Perrino Hospital physician who helped treat the wounded, told reporters that one of them was a teenage girl who was in a grave but stable condition after surgery.

Premier Mario Monti, from the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in the United States, said he hopes the wounded quickly recover.

Bombing Outside Italian School Kills Teen Girl, Wounds Others

The blast killed 16-year-old Melissa Bassi. (Image source: Daily Mail)

Anti-Mafia prosecutor Cataldo Motta, based in the nearby port of Lecce, told reporters there were no claims of responsibility. He added that the bombing didn’t appear to be the work of organized crime, since fuel and not dynamite, the Mafia’s traditional choice of explosive, was used. Motta said the `’international terrorism” angle was unlikely, but stressed that investigators had not ruled out any hypothesis.

Italy has been marking the 20th anniversary of the attack on the Sicilian highway that killed the prosecutor and his wife, but it was unclear if there was an organized crime link to Saturday’s explosion.

Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, in charge of domestic security, said she was “struck” by the fact that the school was named after the slain hero and his wife, but she cautioned that investigators at that point “have no elements” to blame the school attack on organized crime.

“It’s not the usual (method) for the Mafia,” she told Sky in a phone interview. The Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra usually targets specific figures, such as judges, prosecutors, turncoats or rival mobsters in attacks, and not civilian targets such as schools.

Saturday’s bombing is an attack of `’unprecedented cruelty. The big problem now is to get intelligence” on the bombing, said Cancellieri.

National police chief Antonio Manganelli told Sky TG24 that Italy’s “best investigators” had been dispatched to Brindisi.

Outside the school, textbooks and notebooks, their pages fluttering in the breeze, and a backpack littered the street near where the bomb exploded. At the sound of the blast, students inside the school ran outside to see what had happened.

Officials initially said the bomb was in a trash bin outside the school, but later the Italian news agency ANSA said the device was placed on a low wall ringing the building and near the bin. The wall was damaged and charred from the blast. Sky TG24 said the device included three containers of fuel.

The school’s principal, Angelo Rampino said the bomb, which reportedly had a timer component, went off at a time when students are known to be flocking to school. `’It was done to kill the girls,” said Rampino .

The bombing follows a spate of attacks against Italian officials and government or public buildings by a group of anarchists, including the shooting and wounding of an official from a nuclear engineering firm, which is part of a state-controlled company. An anti-nuclear anarchist group that previously had targeted Italy’s tax collection agency claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Authorities have said the Italian anarchists have worked in close contact with Greece-based anarchists. Brindisi is a major point of departure for ferries between Italy and Greece, but there was no immediate indication from investigators of any Greek link.

The attacks and threats lodged against authorities prompted the government earlier in the week to assign bodyguards to 550 individuals, and deploy 16,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.

Brindisi is a lively port town in Puglia, the region in the southeastern “heel” of the Italian boot-shaped peninsula. An organized crime syndicate known as the Sacred United Crown has been traditionally active there, but crackdowns have been widely considered by authorities to have reduced the organization’s power.

Comments (29)

  • mdavid
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 12:37am

    The only reason these anarchists are so emboldened is because the left wing media won’t stigmatize them the way they do Christians and the right. If they just shut up about conservatives, and put half that energy into exposing, filming, and humbling these brainless sods, they wouldn’t be so quick to whore for attention with violence.

    Report Post » mdavid  
    • db321
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 10:44am

      Why are they still Bombing – did they not get what the Liberal Media described as a Jeffersonian Democracy, Sharia Law, and Muslim Brotherhood. Now they are getting Earthquakes and their Euro is collapsing. Soon they will have everything they want – total destruction, starvation, and chaos like they never ever could of have imagine. That is what happens when you get in bed with the devil.

      Report Post » db321  
  • dontbotherme
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 9:56pm

    I’m sorry for my anger. Enough. I’m so sick of terrorists attacking & murdering innocent children & people minding their own lives. Damn these cowards to hell. Satan, take them back to hell with you where they belong. Jesus, help us. We are in Your hands, Lord.

    Report Post »  
  • Baikonur
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 8:23pm

    @mike_trivisonno
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:44pm
    ‘Rome, Italy, sadly is home to the largest mosque in Western Europe.’
    ***************
    There is nothing sad about Rome.
    I am there twice a year. It is a very happy and beautiful city.
    People who try to stir up violence and trouble are the ones who experience problems, I think.

    Report Post » Baikonur  
  • OperationNorthwoods
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 7:14pm

    @ Marko331….Anyone with a 10th grade education knows about Operation Gladio…but what good would it do nowadays since Italy is a country ruined by socialistic governing principles, which the ‘left’ screamed for in the 80‘s and 90’s and achieved……Italy has a free market but also a cradle to grave welfare program….I can see Gladio having some effect 20 some odd years ago…I have heard too many left wing nutcases and OWS idiots resort to the Op. Gladio excuse to distance themselves from the carnage, rape and abuse many amongst their ranks are guilty of….do not fall into the category of the ill informed excuse making crowd.

    Thanks for your perspective. I get your point. It just seems to me that if we know that governments stage terror attacks and use them to their advantage, we should look a little deeper into these acts when they take place and ask ourselves who really benefits from them. I’m not saying every terror attack is done by the government. But we do know that some of them are.

    Report Post » OperationNorthwoods  
  • FromSeaToSea
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:59pm

    Between 2001 – 2006 NATO & Bush killed 500,000 children in Iraq.

    Muslims represent a minor enemy. The real enemy is who took a stick and has stirred the honets nest for the last 12+ years. The real enemy is the one who drones sovereign citizens around the world everyday creating 50 kills of collateral damage for every so called terrorist killed.

    If worldwide voting was taken, the real terrorists are in Washington with goals that are constitutionally treasonous.

    Report Post »  
    • Mark0331
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 5:34pm

      You say NATO and Bush…along with a majority of Congress, which included a whole heck of a lot of Democrats,as well as the consensus of nearly every major indusrialized nation…..your statement should encompass the whole truth, do not cherry pick….How do you feel about the fire bombings of Dresden or Tokyo during WW2?..or how about the attacks on Hiroshima?Nagasaki?…..Lots of children killed those times as well…If you have a solution to the evil that men do, I would gladly hear it…but if it is speaking about how Ron Paul would fix things, forget it…Paul is OK for Treasurer, not President, even Ron himself knows that, thats why he quit running…..Washington is corrupt has been for over 75 years…the question isn’t what should WE do about it, the question should be what would YOU do about it…and quit blaming the US for every ill in this world, check your history and go back more than 12 years…try starting with NAZIS and Muslim alliances…..basic stuff, but you may learn something…

      Report Post » Mark0331  
    • Bob_R_OathKeeper
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 7:12pm

      I agree with Mark, nice cherry-picking, coward.

      Report Post » Bob_R_OathKeeper  
    • proliance
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 9:20pm

      The children of Iraq didn’t die because of Bush or UN sanctions. Saddam Hussein was allowed to sell oil for food and medicine. Instead he chose to build palaces. Put the blame where it belongs.

      Report Post » proliance  
    • From Virginia
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:07am

      No they didn’t – The Iraqi‘s themselves don’t put the number of dead – people killed mostly by outside muslims coming to the country to cause mayhem – that high.

      Nice try though…….

      Report Post »  
  • Bryan B
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:47pm

    Jesus was talking with his Disciples, and sitting with them was a child.

    And Jesus said to them, “I liken you to one of these little ones, for their angels are before my Fathers face both night and day, and it should be better for them not to even have been born, then to harm a hair on their head.”

    Report Post » Bryan B  
  • flatdaddio
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:37pm

    how does killing children support a cause? something wrong with these people..

    Report Post »  
  • Baikonur
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:18pm

    I took a private guided tour with my daughter in Rome and our guide told us that in the South of Italy, Mafia is still supreme, and it goes so far as their operatives walking up to young women and ripping gold chain necklaces off their necks in small villages. Everything belongs top them. In the middle of Rome, it all seemed impossible. I didn’t want to believe her at all.

    Report Post » Baikonur  
    • Mark0331
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:40pm

      That kind of behavior happens everyday in Newark, Camden, Harlem, Compton, Watts, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit etc…why would it suprise you that it was happening in Italy?…You need to get out more…Gangs run entire neighborhoods in this country and have done so for decades…where have you been?

      Report Post » Mark0331  
    • Baikonur
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 5:57pm

      @Gangs run entire neighborhoods in this country and have done so for decades…where have you been?

      ******************
      I’ve been in the US for most of my life, and living in Europe for the last seven years. What you are saying is very important. It is evidence of the failure of the police departments locally. They cannot handle heavy crime, so they harrass pot smokers instead of eliminating gangs.

      Crime is the #1 reason old scared white people want to own guns. Crime is the #1 reason Republicans are scared of poor people.

      Is there a crime epidemic in our country? Yes! Is the police harrassing people walking down the street and searching them just for being black–yes! In NYC, this is becoming scandalous.

      Is the police systematically addressing the crime situation? YES! The Police are not the enemy. But they cannot do it on their own. They need help.

      Decriminalize medicine. Address the mental health situation.

      Report Post » Baikonur  
    • From Virginia
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:16am

      Republicans aren’t afraid of poor people. Poor pople, in most cases ARE the poor and “poor” black people generally have more than poor white people because the know how the game te system.

      Police have beenmilitarized in thi country and are, more often than not, revenue collectors issuing usless tickets to the lawabiding citizen. Police are more likely to kill someone tha the general public. They have absolutely destroyed the trust the public have had with them due to affirmative action dumbing down the requirements.

      As to mental health, again you can blame the dumbocrats. They emptied out and closed down the mental hospitals in the 80′s turning all the people in them out onto the streets to reek havoc on the populace.

      Simply stated, liberalism kills.

      Report Post »  
  • OperationNorthwoods
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:03pm

    Maybe they are bringing back Operation Gladio. For those not familiar with the operation it was an Italian intellegence operation that used right wing terrorists to bomb civilians and blame the carnage on Communist and Anarchist groups in the country.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladio_in_Italy

    Report Post » OperationNorthwoods  
    • Mark0331
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:27pm

      ….Anyone with a 10th grade education knows about Operation Gladio…but what good would it do nowadays since Italy is a country ruined by socialistic governing principles, which the ‘left’ screamed for in the 80‘s and 90’s and achieved……Italy has a free market but also a cradle to grave welfare program….I can see Gladio having some effect 20 some odd years ago…I have heard too many left wing nutcases and OWS idiots resort to the Op. Gladio excuse to distance themselves from the carnage, rape and abuse many amongst their ranks are guilty of….do not fall into the category of the ill informed excuse making crowd.

      Report Post » Mark0331  
  • lukerw
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 3:52pm

    My guess… Muslim AntiFemaleEducation act!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • Mark0331
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 3:47pm

    People around the world will use the decimaion of the youth as a ‘stage’ or ‘pulpit’ to advance their heinous agenda…Evil always tries to advance by using the slaughter of innocents to further its agenda….nothing gets attention like a dead child.

    Report Post » Mark0331  
  • NOBALONEY
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 3:38pm

    Coming to America

    Report Post » NOBALONEY  
  • mike_trivisonno
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 3:35pm

    “…“It’s not the usual (method) for the Mafia,” she told Sky in a phone interview. The Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra usually targets specific figures, such as judges, prosecutors, turncoats or rival mobsters in attacks, and not civilian targets such as schools….”

    Want to know who DOES target schools and children? Muslims engaged in Jihad do.

    While we wait to see what, if any, connections this bombing has with Islamic Jihad, read up on the jihad attacks on the school children in Beslan.

    Report Post » mike_trivisonno  
    • Mark0331
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:02pm

      @MIKE..I was thinking of Beslan as well…that was a tragedy of epic scope….Heaven help us if this is the new ‘front’ taking shape by the muslim horde….if they decide to employ these tactics here in the States, it will be all too easy, unfortunately…..this could be nothing more than a love spat gone terribly wrong…but something tells me no, it seems too sophisticated for a simple ‘pipe bomb love bomb’…the muslim horde has been quiet lately in regards to mass media murder mayhem…

      Report Post » Mark0331  
    • Baikonur
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:21pm

      You are jumping the shark here. The Mafia would never ever do a Beslan. Historically, the Mafia has never done anything like that.

      (and I know of what I speak, because I have seen all three Godfather moviesat the same time twice. But seriously.)

      Report Post » Baikonur  
    • Mark0331
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:37pm

      Baikonour….no one is talking about mafia..but if you think the mafia is still ‘classy’ and would never do such a thing..here in NJ, the Lucchese and Gambino family has over 40 members on trial for running guns, heroin and coke with Bloods and Crips…so, they have at least left their ‘old school charm’ at the door and roll with even bigger dirtbags…no ‘honor’ any more amongst thieves.

      Report Post » Mark0331  
    • mike_trivisonno
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 4:44pm

      We will have to wait and see what manner of violence was done.

      Rome, Italy, sadly is home to the largest mosque in Western Europe. The despised Mosque of Rome.

      Italy is a hotbed of Jihad.

      Report Post » mike_trivisonno  
    • Bob_R_OathKeeper
      Posted on May 19, 2012 at 7:18pm

      Baikonur – Trayvon was “jumping shark”, moron.

      Report Post » Bob_R_OathKeeper  
  • Joss
    Posted on May 19, 2012 at 3:35pm

    Despicable cowards. I hope they are found quickly.

    Report Post »  

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