Bomb blast outside bank in Caracas

Caracas, Dec 22 (IANS/EFE) A small bomb went off on Tuesday at the CAF-Latin American Development Bank offices in Venezuela's capital but no one was injured, an official said.

"The explosion occurred a few minutes after midnight ... All our support and solidarity go out to the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) and its employees after this cowardly attack," Chacao mayor Ramon Muchacho, the top official in the Caracas area where the building is located, said in a Twitter post.

"An individual wearing a hoodie-type sweatshirt got out of a pick-up truck and placed a bag on the glass wall of a bank that operates at the CAF (building) and there was an explosion 10 seconds later that caused property damage," said the mayor, citing "unofficial versions" of the bombing.

"At the CAF building, there is broken glass and remnants of what appears to be a homemade explosive device," he said, adding that a couple of windows on the building's ground floor were shattered.

National government officials have not commented on the incident.

Private security guards at the building told investigators that it appeared "powerful fireworks" were set off, Chacao police chief Yoryi Carvajal said.

"There was an attempt to casue terror and some damage, and, in fact, they did," Carvajal said, adding that the bombing was caught on security cameras.

The CAF is a multilateral financial institution that supports sustainable development in member countries and regional integration.

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela, along with 14 private banks in the Andean region, belong to the organisation.

--IANS/EFE

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