A Greek police forensic expert searches for evidence at the area where a 38-year-old woman was killed early Saturday when a bomb she was carrying exploded in her hands outside a bank branch, local police said, in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, May 3, 2025.(Image: Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)A woman was killed in the early hours of Saturday in Thessaloniki, a city in northern Greece, when a bomb she was reportedly carrying detonated in her hands, according to local law enforcement.
The 38-year-old woman is believed to have been transporting the explosive device with the intention of placing it outside a nearby bank around 5 a.m.
The blast significantly damaged several storefronts and vehicles in the vicinity.
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Authorities did not publicly identify the woman but disclosed that she had a criminal history involving drugs and prostitution. She had also been implicated in at least one robbery and multiple thefts in the past.
The Greek police’s division for organized crime has taken up the investigation into the incident, while authorities are also probing potential connections between the woman and extreme leftist groups.
Greece has a history of sporadic bombings and targeted killings, often attributed to various organized crime syndicates. The country also has a long-standing record of politically motivated violence dating back to the 1970s, with domestic extremist factions conducting small-scale bombings that typically result in property damage but seldom cause injuries.
While the most active groups from the 1980s and 1990s, which primarily targeted politicians, foreign businesses, and diplomats, have been dismantled, new and smaller factions have emerged.
In an incident last year, a man suspected of attempting to assemble a bomb was killed when the device he was constructing exploded in a central Athens apartment. A woman present in the apartment at the time suffered severe injuries.
The intended target of their planned attack remains unclear.
The explosion has led Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis to issue a warning about the rise of a new generation of domestic extremists.
In April, a newly formed group named Revolutionary Class Struggle claimed responsibility for a bomb that detonated in central Athens near the offices of Hellenic Train, Greece’s primary railway services operator. They also claimed to have planted another bomb near the Labor Ministry in early February.
On the fence of the bank branch reads: “Justice is to resist. Take stones.”(Image: Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Greek police forensic experts search the area where a 38-year-old woman was killed early Saturday amid a rise in domestic extremism. (Image: Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
The explosion has led Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis to issue a warning about the rise of a new generation of domestic extremists.(Image: Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)The blast near the train offices caused minor damage to the building, and no injuries were reported. Forty minutes before the explosion, an anonymous call was made to local media, alerting them about the device.
This allowed police to evacuate and secure the area.
The group claiming responsibility stated that the bombing was part of an armed struggle against the state.
This bombing at the train offices occurred shortly after the second anniversary of Greece’s most devastating railway disaster. In this incident, 57 people lost their lives and dozens more were injured when a freight train and a passenger train heading in opposite directions were mistakenly put on the same track.
The fatal accident ignited widespread outrage and revealed serious deficiencies in Greece’s railway system, including its safety systems. Some relatives of the victims led large-scale protests against the country’s conservative government on the second anniversary of the accident.