A bomb explosion at the Greek ministry in charge of police could be an ominous show of strength by militants in a nation suffering austerity cuts that have sparked street protests and scared off tourism.
Thursday night's blast, which killed one official, suggested that a tiny violent fringe with a bent for bombings remains active despite the arrests in April of six suspected members of its most militant group, the leftist Revolutionary Struggle.
"This is the last thing that Greece needed," said George Kassimeris, a Greek expert on terrorism at WolverhamptonUniversity in England. "All the implications are extremely negative for Greece."
"The financial crisis is exacerbating the country's tendency towards protests, violence and dissent," he said. In May, Greece won a 110 billion euro ($147.6 billion) European Union and IMF loan in return for draconian austerity cuts.
A close aide to citizen protection minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis, died in the blast of a booby-trapped package while the minister, who was in an office nearby, escaped unhurt. The ministry runs the police force.
No one claimed responsibility for the bomb and police were investigating how it could have passed security checks at the very heart of the police force without help from the inside.
"I wouldn't like us to start speculating that there was a Trojan horse in the Greek police headquarters, inside the ministry," police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis told state TV channel ET3. "It seems there was a security deficit."
"Greek society disapproves of this criminal act," prime minister George Papandreou told parliament. "Greek society will not be terrorised."
Greece has been rocked by a series of bomb attacks claimed by leftist militants since its worst riots in decades in 2008.
Three people died in a petrol bomb attack on an Athens bank during an anti-austerity demonstration in May.
Newspapers expressed wide concerns after the latest blast, which added to a deluge of bad news about debts and austerity. Unions plan a one-day strike on June 29, the fifth this year.
"Terrorists wanted to prove with this attack that they still have power despite recent arrests and arms confiscation," the centre-left Ethnos wrote. "And they proved it."
It said that the blast occurred "at a critical time for the image of Greece and the tourism sector".
Tourism, ranging from Greece's islands to monuments such as the ancient Parthenon in Athens, accounts for almost a fifth of gross domestic product and bookings are down.
The centre-left Eleftherotypia asked if ordinary people could feel safe when the government was unable to protect itself. And it said that the blast brought the spotlight back to Greece from other debt-laden euro nations.
A security source said that the bomb contained a kilo (2.2 lbs) of an explosive known to have been used in the past by a group known as Fire Conspiracy Cells.
When he took office in 2009, Chrysohoidis promised to crack down on militants. In a previous spell in the job in 2002, he dismantled November 17, Greece's most lethal guerrilla group.
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