Mafia accused of Italian school bombing that killed teenage girl But it has ready access to explosives through its links with organised crime in the Balkans, just across the Adriatic. While the Italian government cautioned against jumping to conclusions about who might be behind the attack, local officials had little doubt, blaming it on the group and saying it may have been a reprisal for recent police operations. "It was a Mafia attack," said Nicola Fratoianni, a regional official. A bomb placed in front of a school bearing the Falcone name is a clear message from the clans - a reprisal to recent police operations. Ten days ago police conducted a raid in which they arrested 16 alleged members of Sacra Corona Unita, charging them with extortion, illegal weapons ownership and Mafia association. Many of the pupils at the school, including the teenager who was killed, were from the nearby town of Mesagne, one of the strongholds of the Mafia group. The attack may also have been timed to coincide with an anti-Mafia procession that was due to have been held in Brindisi on Saturday. According to another theory being pursued by police, it may have been connected to a failed attempt by godfathers a few days ago to blow up the head of an anti-Mafia association in Mesagne with a car bomb. "We have seen a resumption of criminal Mafia activity in and around Brindisi recently after leaders of Sacra Corona Unita were released from jail," said Alfredo Mantovano, an MP from the conservative People of Freedom party of Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister. Prosecutors pointed out, however, that Mafia gangsters normally carry out attacks against rival mobsters, prosecutors, police and courthouses, and that it was unusual for them to hit such a soft "civilian" target. The bombing was "an anomaly," said Annamaria Cancellieri, the interior minister. We don't yet have elements to suggest this was a Mafia attack, we need to be cautious. But it is striking that the bomb went off in front of a school with the name Falcone. The bomb, believed to have been planted on a low wall in front of the school, went off around 7.50am local time, when students were arriving for Saturday morning lessons. The force of the explosion blew out the windows of surrounding buildings and left several victims severely burnt. Surgeons said one teenage girl might lose both her legs. The casualties could have been far worse had the bomb detonated a little later, when the majority of students arrived at the school, said Mr Fratoianni. I was opening the window and the blast wave hit me. I saw kids on the ground. All blackened. Their books on fire. It was terrifying," said an employee at the prosecutor's office next to the school. The girl killed by the blast was named as Melissa Bassi, a fashion student, while her friend Veronica Capodieci is fighting for her life. The last major bomb attack by the Mafia was in Florence in 1993, when a powerful car bomb was detonated behind the Uffizi Gallery, killing five people and wounding more than 20 others, and destroying or damaging dozens of works in the gallery's art collection. Following Saturday's bombing, Mario Monti, the prime minister, who was attending the G8 summit in the US, ordered flags to be flown at half-mast across the nation for three days. Mr Monti, appointed as the head of an unelected government of technocrats in November, is pushing through a sweeping programme of austerity measures, including spending cuts and tax increases, which have prompted a resurgence of the political extremism which struck Italy in the seventies and eighties. There have been bomb threats against tax offices and an attack on the head of a nuclear engineering company owned by defence technology group Finmeccanica, who was shot in the leg by an anarchist group.