A known anarchist group has claimed responsibility for three rudimentary devices which exploded during the night between Sunday and Monday in a fashionable Turin neighborhood.
In a letter to the Torino Cronaca daily, a group calling itself Fai Rat said it had chosen the elegant area of the city known as Crocetta for the attack because the upper middle class and "exploiters" lived there.
The group also demanded the closure of an immigration transfer center in Turin and explained that the attack marked the start of the "third phase of the do-it-yourself campaign".
Investigators said they believed the message to be authentic.
Fai Rat is an Italian acronym for Informal Anarchist Federation - Tuscan Anarchist Network.
The same group claimed responsibility for three letter bombs mailed in July of last year.
The first letter bomb was sent to and exploded in the hands of Torino Cronaca editor-in-chief Beppe Fossati, who suffered injuries to the face, hand and eyes.
The second was sent to the company which was responsible for the transfer center and the third was addressed to Turin Mayor Sergio Chiamparino.
These second two packages did not explode and were intercepted by police.
Fai Rat said at the time the letter bombs were the "second phase" of their subversive campaign and recalled that the first phase had been two bombs placed in refuse bins which exploded on June 1, 2006 outside a Carabinieri cadet barracks in the northwest Italian city of Cuneo.
Because of the timing of the blasts, the three bombs which exploded this week caused no injuries and little damage. Only two blew up completely.
However, police said there was malicious intent because the programmed delayed reaction of the explosions was designed to hurt any police who may have arrived on the scene after the first explosion.
