Leftists claim fire that caused Berlin train outage

May 23, 2011, 17:15 GMT

Berlin - An anonymous radical leftist group claimed responsibility Monday for a fire in railway wiring that hampered travel for tens of thousands of rail commuters in Berlin and also knocked out telephone links.

The fire in a truss of cables outside an interchange station in the east of the city stalled mass-transit trains and long-distance transport, at the same time as the network was hampered by a regional rail strike.

Police said the 3 am (0100 GMT) fire seemed to be arson, but could not immediately confirm that a claim of responsibility found on the internet by a city newspaper, the Berliner Morgenpost, was true.

The anonymous claim said Berlin was being attacked because of German arms exports and the country's use of nuclear energy.

The fire cut off signals, power to electric trains and data traffic. Berlin's commuter network was struck by a similar cable fire in November, responsibility for which was also claimed by left-wing radicals.