Teenage girl dead in school bombing

ROME (AP):A bomb exploded outside a high school in southern Italy named after a slain anti-Mafia prosecutor as students arrived for class yesterday, killing a teenage girl and wounding several other classmates, officials said.

The device went off a few minutes before 8 a.m. in the Adriatic port town of Brindisi just as students milled outside, chatting and getting ready for class at the Morvillo-Falcone vocational institute.

The school is named after the slain anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his wife, Francesca Morvillo, a judge who was also killed in the 1992 bombing in Sicily by Cosa Nostra.

One of the wounded students, a girl who was walking alongside the victim outside the school in Brindisi, was reported in critical condition after surgery.

Officials said at least seven students were injured, but some news reports put the figure at 10. There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

Italy has been marking the 20th anniversary of the Sicilian highway attack, but it was unclear if there was an organised crime link to yesterday's explosion.

In Brindisi, local civil protection agency official Fabiano Amati said a female student died of her wounds after being taken to a hospital and at least seven other students were hospitalised.

Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, in charge of domestic security, said she was "struck" by the fact that the school was named after the slain hero and his wife, but she cautioned that investigators at that point "have no elements" to blame the school attack on organised crime.