Bomb alert at American school in Greek capital

An unknown caller told a Greek newspaper that a bomb planted near the school would go off at 9:00 pm (1800 GMT), police said.

Police officers sealed off the area surrounding the school, in the Aghia Paraskevi suburb, and began searching for suspicious parcels.

The alert came a day after Greek police defused a small bomb planted outside a British car dealership in Athens, intensifying security fears for this summer’s Olympic Games after a string of similar incidents in the city.

It also followed a series of low-level bombings in and around Athens since early May, coming less than three months before millions of spectators descend upon the capital for the Olympic Games.

No one claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attempted bombing. Another anonymous warning about an imminent blast in front of the same dealership was made earlier in the day, but police dismissed it as a hoax after investigating the area.

There was no evidence of a link between the explosive device discovered on Wednesday and the one used in a May 5 bomb attack against an Athens police station, an official from the public order ministry told AFP.

Police said the device – a metal box measuring around 10-by-15 centimetres in size and wrapped in fabric – contained a few grammes of dynamite.

In the May 5 attack, claimed by the fringe group Revolutionary Struggle, three dynamite pieces weighing around 200 grammes (seven ounces) each went off, after which the group warned "wealthy visitors," "capitalists", sponsors and security officials to stay away from the August sporting gala.

Greece is spending around one billion euros (US$1.2 billion) on Olympic security.

It is expected to deploy some 70,000 security personnel for the Games – outnumbering athletes by almost seven to one – amid worldwide concerns of possible terror attacks at the world’s premier sporting event.

Greece has also called in NATO to boost its own security after train bombings in Madrid on March 11 killed nearly 200 people.

Athens has faced mounting international concern that preparations for the Games are lagging behind and that the four-yearly sporting extravaganza could turn into an embarrassing fiasco.

But International Olympic Committee officials gave the preparations a clean bill of health earlier this month after their final official visit.

The Greek capital expects to host around 16,000 athletes and officials, 45,000 volunteers, 21,500 journalists and millions of spectators for the Olympics. – AFP