Italian school rocked by deadly bomb attack

[Lord Zentei]

Rome (CNN) -- At least one girl has died and half a dozen are injured following a bomb blast outside a school in the southern Italian city of Brindisi, Italian officials said Saturday.

Officials have given conflicting accounts of the number killed and injured.

Daniela Buccoliero, an official at the Prefecture of Brindisi, a local office of the Interior Ministry, told CNN one 16-year-old girl had died and another six students are injured, two of them seriously.

Brindisi Mayor Mimmo Consales and Fabiano Amati, regional minister for Italy's Civil Protection agency, said there had been two deaths as a result of the blast.

Amati said the scene shortly after the explosion was "dramatic."

"There were school back packs and notebooks everywhere. Many windows of the nearby buildings were broken," he told CNN.

Amati said the police had found three gas cylinders at the site that were detonated with a remote control.

The device was concealed behind a trash can by a wall 50 meters from the entrance of the school, he said.

"It's an attack on all Italians because schools are considered a secure area," Amati said. "It's the first time in our country that a school is under attack."

Consales told CNN one of the girls had died in surgery from the wounds she sustained in the blast.

Another of the injured is in a very serious condition, he said.

Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti said the government was determined to combat crime and unite the country.

He expressed the government's "deep sorrow, dismay and outrage" at what he called a "most grave and heinous crime" in a statement from the United States, where he is attending the G8 summit.

Monti was informed of the blast during the night, the statement said, and has been in close contact with Italy's president, interior minister and other local authorities since.

He has ordered the country's flag to be displayed at half-mast Saturday and for the next three days, and sent a message of condolence to those directly affected by the blast.

The explosion occurred early Saturday as students were arriving at the school, which offers vocational training, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

It is not yet clear why the school was targeted or who carried out the attack.

Police chief Francesco Cirillo told CNN that the motive for the bomb is under investigation and that no one has claimed responsibility.

Nichi Vendola, governor of the Puglia region where Brindisi is situated, said: "It could be either a mafia or a political terrorism attack. It's too early to say. It's an unprecedented event."

The Francesca Morvillo Falcone school is named after the wife of a prominent anti-mafia judge, which has fueled speculation that the organized crime group might be behind it. It is 20 years since Falcone was assassinated in Palermo, Sicily, in May 1992.

The school is located near both the tribunal and the city's tax collection agency.

Italy's tax collection agencies, called Equitalia, have been targeted by mail bombs, Molotov cocktails and suicides in front of their offices in recent months, with the incidents occurring in the cities of Rome, Livorno and Bologna, respectively.

Italy's interior ministry said this week that it would start to deploy soldiers outside some government buildings because of the current tensions.

The local anti-racket commission of Mesagne, a town in Brindisi province, issued a warning last week of heightened threats by both organized crime groups and anarchists against government agencies.

An anti-mafia march that scheduled for Sunday will go ahead as scheduled.

I suspect that if the purpose was to cow the Italian people into submission, then they will have achieved the exact opposite result.

[Simon_Jester]

Mafia, political terrorism... is "disgruntled student" a possible explanation?

[Haruko]

When I heard that this was an all female vocational school where the bomb was set up, I remembered two school massacres that specifically targeted women, and thought: What about the possibility that the victims were targeted in the article quoted above because of their sex.

[Melchior]

Mafia, political terrorism... is "disgruntled student" a possible explanation?

Extremely unlikely: it is a mostly female school, our schools generally don't seem to be inhabited by the toxic and divisive culture typically seen in the american high schools where that kind of thing happens, and it would have be a total historical unicum. Also moving three big gas cylinders in secret inside a school probably required significant strength and probably helpers.

When I heard that this was an all female vocational school where the bomb was set up, I remembered two school massacres that specifically targeted women, and thought: What about the possibility that the victims were targeted in the article quoted above because of their sex.

Not all female, mostly female. It's... possible if not likely - it's the South, some extremist "traditional role of women" religious sects do in fact exist... it's still a strange target and nobody claimed responsibility.
It's not anarchists or "red" (communist) terrorism, but nothing else is clear and there are a lot of contrasting clues and historical parallels, evenly balanced. It looks a lot like the once typical strategy of tension (don't read the en.wikipedia article on the subject, it's terrible) attacks, carefully engineered to be incomprehensible, possibly to create the impression of unseen shadowy power brokers coiling beneath the surface of the lawful institutions.

[Haruko]

Just curious how you know that there were males attending the school? Hope I did not miss it re-reading above. I got the idea that it was all female because that was an assertion made by Deutsche Welle Journal, an news org based in Germany.

[Melchior]

Just curious how you know that there were males attending the school? Hope I did not miss it re-reading above. I got the idea that it was all female because that was an assertion made by Deutsche Welle Journal, an news org based in Germany.

Besides the fact that there are practically no single sex public schools in Italy, I heard it the news. It's just a fashion design oriented school, which explains the skewered gender ratio.

[Haruko]

I am guessing fashion design is what is meant by vocational for this particular school? From the article I saw it was said to offer vocational training, but did not pick up on it being fashion design oriented (not sure what is meant by oriented). Then again I cannot read the Italian language sign that was shown in front of the school. Is that where you got the information (if yes and you do not mind, what does it say)?

[Melchior]

I suspect that if the purpose was to cow the Italian people into submission, then they will have achieved the exact opposite result

Which is probably true but conjures the nightmarish - and sadly not entirely baseless in the context of italian history - notion that some secret service functionary verging on madness decided that this bloodletting was in fact needed to maintain national cohesion.
The intellectual difference between what I wrote above (we even have a specific word used for this kind of explanation in this context - "dietrologia", backwards-logy) and, say, 9/11 truthers is that this sort of stuff verifiably happened here (GLADIO, etc.), if in the context of the cold war.

[Melchior]

I am guessing fashion design is what is meant by vocational for this particular school? From the article I saw it was said to offer vocational training, but did not pick up on it being fashion design oriented (not sure what is meant by oriented). Then again I cannot read the Italian language sign that was shown in front of the school. Is that where you got the information (if yes and you do not mind, what does it say)?

Italian high-schools are tiered: there are the licei (somewhat like the german gymnasium), which are solely meant to prepare for university, technical institutes which are, well, easier, and remove the teaching of latin and greek to make room for more lab time and technical subjects and professionals institutes (istituti professionali) which are meant to give a minimal generalist formation and teach a specific profession (so they're very varied).
By "oriented" I mean that in addition to the aforementioned minimal generalist formation (literature, math, etc.) the subjects are related to fashion design - I don't know exactly, I went to a liceo.
The sign reads "state professional institute for social services, fashion and tourism" and also informs that the school offers evening courses for adults and workers and receives funding from the european union (it's actually a very unusually informative sign).

[Saxtonite]

Extremely unlikely: it is a mostly female school, our schools generally don't seem to be inhabited by the toxic and divisive culture typically seen in the american high schools where that kind of thing happens, and it would have be a total historical unicum.

Can yo tell us more please?

Not all female, mostly female. It's... possible if not likely - it's the South, some extremist "traditional role of women" religious sects do in fact exist... it's still a strange target and nobody claimed responsibility.

How popular is that in southern italy and sicily?

It's not anarchists or "red" (communist) terrorism, but nothing else is clear and there are a lot of contrasting clues and historical parallels, evenly balanced. It looks a lot like the once typical strategy of tension (don't read the en.wikipedia article on the subject, it's terrible) attacks, carefully engineered to be incomprehensible, possibly to create the impression of unseen shadowy power brokers coiling beneath the surface of the lawful institutions.

"Deep State"?

[someone_else]

It's kinda weird. I mean, the compressed gas tanks make me think of FAE, which are supposed to be the most dangerous kinds of explosives. The damage done by this bomb is kinda low for its potential. Something went wrong.

A gas tank is kinda durable (the big-ish ones can stop pistol bullets at point blank, maybe even smaller ones), that's the worst kind of thing to work with if you're DIY-ing a bomb since now have to place relatively powerful charges to blow the tank first and have VERY PRECISE timing for the ignition charge (that also has to be shielded from the "open the tank" charges). That's demolition equipment and fuzes you don't find easily.

I mean, if he used a friggin' medium-sized trash can filled of gasoline with a simple explosive charge inside he would have done much more carnage without all this risk of screwing everything up. (yeah, that's a firebomb, it will kill its targets by burning and not by blast, but given the targets and the range it would have worked well anyway)

But back to my opinion, the fact he managed to kill only 1 and injure a dozen make me think of two possibilities:

-if the guy was relatively sane I'd say it was an assassination attempt. That is, he wanted to kill a girl, and went a bit overboard.

-the "psycho" route, a guy wants to make carnage for some reason that makes no real sense (like "male pride" bullshit that is relatively common in the southern parts, albeit a secondary school that trains girls to make fashion stuff shouldn't put the women so far from their traditional role, unlike a university for example) but is too fucking stupid to learn how a goddamn bomb is made.

Mafia, political terrorism... is "disgruntled student" a possible explanation?

I'd call total bullshit on the first two, and a "imho not likely" on the last.

Mafia (the real sluggers anyway, it's not a monolitic thing so it may be a lesser "gang" that sucks balls) has access to military-grade equipment (they left functional bazookas and rocket launchers just to scare people not so long ago, and blew up fucking highways to kill whoever was pissing them off badly, and have stashes of anything hidden in bunkers they love to also hide themselves in), and their operatives have pretty damn good training.
If they wanted to scare the shit out of us, they would have blown up the school. They can do it.

Political terrorism makes little sense imho, at the moment most of the so-called "political terrorists" send bombs to Equitalia, an organization that collects taxes on behalf of the Italian goverment. It's top guy lost some fingers due to that.
Most of the seriuos "political terrorism" thing died down after the USSR collapsed, what little is left is generally aimed at government stuff (police/judges/administrative staff), but the level of competence was very very limited before and sucks balls nowadays.

As for disgruntled students... dunno, but afaik we had little to no cases of students going mad and nuking/murdering/gunning down stuff 'Murrica style.
I think it's mainly because any serious "do your own bomb" how-to is written in english, which puts the info well above the average italian teenager's reach.
And easily-carried guns are much harder to get than in Murrica (yeah, because running around with a relatively common hunting rifle will not attract any suspicion).

[Sarevok]

^^

The Italian mafia sound pretty dangerous. Where are they getting the money for that kind of weaponry ? And do they actually get into firefights require such ordinance or is it just to intimidate people ?

[someone_else]

That's the bigger fishes (it's not a single organization), and they are in competition with each other as well.

The primary money sources are corruption (to milk money from the state by getting contracts to build/buy/do murderously overpriced stuff, or stuff that is never finished like the motorway Autostrada A3 Napoli-Reggio Calabria), drugs (very very very lucrative), counterfeited stuff (you know, "Prada" stuff is sold at 15 euros by a black guy walking on the beach, extortion (they ask all people in their controlled territory to pay money).

Secondarily there is also dangerous material disposal (ships with radioactives sunk on purpose in all mediterranean, or chemicals dumped all over the place), trash disposal (they use this to create the trash crysis of Naples and other southern cities, forcing the population to accept the creation of costly incinerators that may or may not be built within this decade) and whatever else may make money, they are pretty damn creative, and their budget is huge.

And no, they are much more subterfuge-oriented.
They did some pretty fucking out-of-scale things in the past (like say blowing up a motorway with 500 kg of TNT to kill the anti-mafia magistrate Falcone), but I think they realized infiltrating themselves into politics is more cost-effective than an all-out war.
Which is part of the reason why we are so totally fucked atm.