PARIS -- A bomb planted under a car in front of the European headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank exploded Saturday, smashing windows and damaging the entrance to the IMF building.
A passerby was slightly injured and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
No other injuries were reported.
The 'medium-strength' bomb was planted under a stolen Toyota parked 10 yards in front of the seven-story IMF building, police said. The car was destroyed and the building entrance was smashed. Windows were shattered along the block in the posh west Paris neighborhood.
Police said no one claimed responsibility for the blast but that it was probably the work of Direct Action, an extreme left-wing terrorist group.
Direct Action claimed responsibility for a similar attack that damaged the IMF building on June 6, 1982. And police said Direct Action used a similar tactic -- planting explosives under a stolen car -- in an Aug. 23, 1984 attack on the offices of the Western European Union in Paris. That bomb failed to explode because of a faulty detonator.
Police also said that a Turkish citizen suspected of being a member of Direct Action was arrested Wednesday carrying four sticks of dynamite and detonators.
The dynamite is believed to have come from a cache of 800 sticks stolen June 3 in Ecaussines, Belgium. Police said the stolenexplosives were for use by three allied leftist groups in Europe - Direct Action, the West German Red Army Faction and the Communist Combattant Cells in Belgium.
Investigators, however, did not say whether they had determined that the same kind of explosives were used in the bomb that went off in front of the IMF building Saturday.
