Bomb blast outside Pakistani leader's Athens home
Posted: 20 March 2010 1418 hrs

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ATHENS: A bomb exploded early Saturday outside the home of a Pakistani community leader in Athens without injuring anyone, Greek police said.

Anonymous warnings made by telephone to a Greek television station and a newspaper 15 minutes before the explosion enabled police to seal off the area.

Media reports said the bomb had targetted the home of the chairman of the Greek-Pakistan friendship association. A bomb squad was examining the remains of the device for clues.

The Pakistani community in Greece numbers several thousand members, most of whom live in the greater Athens area.

Muslim migrants in Greece have faced increasing hostility from far-right militants in recent years, and the Pakistani community has frequently denounced attacks on its members by Greek youths.

Saturday's bombing occurred in the central Athens district of Agios Panteleimonas which has a strong immigrant presence and where protests both in favour and against foreigners have been held in recent months.

Last month a gang of mostly teenagers set fire to a house in Sparta, southern Greece as a group of Bangladeshi migrants slept inside.

In May, five Bangladeshi migrants were injured after unknown assailants tried to burn down a makeshift mosque in Athens.

Greece has no licensed mosques except in a region near the border with Turkey where a Greek Muslim minority of Turkish origin lives.

Thousands of Muslims immigrants elsewhere in the country are forced to use rented flats and warehouses for their prayers.

- AFP/yb