A group of around 20 hooded youths went on the rampage in central Athens yesterday, using sledgehammers and rocks to smash four bank facades and a bookshop belonging to a member of the nationalist party Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) and causing widespread damage but no injuries.

According to witnesses, the youths stormed down central Harilaou Trikoupi Street and started smashing up banks in the area. They also vandalized a bookstore belonging to LAOS deputy Adonis Georgiadis before fleeing to Exarchia Square, an anarchist stronghold. Leaflets scattered in the area proclaimed solidarity with the militant group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, which has claimed a string of bloodless bomb blasts in Athens, most recently an explosion in a garbage dumpster at Pedio tou Areos earlier this month, near an election rally, and an attack on the Kolonaki home of Louka Katseli, now economy minister.