SANTIAGO – Chilean police defused an explosive device before dawn Friday that had been planted in a branch office of the Banco del Estado, located several blocks south of downtown Santiago.

Next to one of the automatic teller machines, bank employees found a bomb made of a fire extinguisher fitted with wires that the criminals had not managed to detonate.

At the same time, a group of robbers tried to rip an ATM out of a nearby supermarket, though police gave no further details.

Later, criminals tried to set a car on fire in the same area.

So far this year, close to 40 similar attacks have been perpetrated in Chile, with anarchist groups claiming responsibility for some of them but without anyone yet being either arrested or charged.

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