Newspaper was tipped off before backpack device went off outside business lobby headquarters in the early hours of Tuesday morning

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A bomb exploded outside the offices of a Greek business federation in central Athens early on Tuesday, police officials said, smashing windows but causing no injuries.

Attacks against banks, politicians, journalists and business people are not uncommon in Greece, which has a long history of political violence and has been mired in its worst economic crisis in decades.

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Tuesday’s blast, which police believe was carried out by domestic guerrilla groups, is the first such attack since Alexis Tsipras came to power as prime minister in January.

The device, triggered by a timer and placed in a backpack near the entrance of the Federation of Greek Enterprises, went off around 3.30am. An anonymous caller had warned a newspaper some 30 minutes earlier, a police official said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses saw glass from smashed windows strewn across the streets in one of the busiest parts of central Athens, close to parliament in Syntagma Square, an area lined with cafes, banks and shops.

Police cordoned off a two-block area surrounding the building and bomb disposal squads were examining the scene.

Makeshift bomb and arson attacks have escalated in Greece since 2010, when it first adopted unpopular austerity measures such as tax rises, wage and pension cuts in exchange for multi-billion euro bailouts by the European Union and the IMF.

In July Athens agreed to further rounds of austerity under its third bailout.