Local politician Matteo Vinci, 42, died instantly when the car he was driving exploded and burst into flames. His 70-year-old father Francesco, a passenger in the car, suffered multiple injuries but survived the blast and is in a serious condition in hospital. Matteo Vinci stood as an independent candidate in recent municipal elections under a “free and democratic" banner.

Onlookers said the car, a Ford Fiesta, was practically destroyed by the explosion. Initial suggestions that the explosion was an accident have been dismissed and prosecutors are treating it as a targeted attack with possible organised crime links. A security source in the Calabrian town of Limbadi said: “It was an attack, not a lethal accident. “An attack carried out with a criminal technique that reports directly, and inevitably, to the mafia. “The explosion occurred when the car crossed a country road in a very isolated area, in the town of Cervolaro.”

Police bomb experts who carried out technical examinations a the scene to determine the causes of the blast said the device had been placed under the car and the explosion could have been activated remotely. Officials said Limbadi was one of the areas of highest Mafia activity in the province of Vibo Valentia and of the whole Calabria. Vibo Valentia prefect Guido Longo has urgently convened the provincial Committee for Public Order and Security to discuss the ramifications of the killing. </s> (ANSA) - Vibo Valentia, April 10 - A 42-year-old former Calabrina local election candidate, Matteo Vinci, died at Limbadi near Vibo Valentia in Calabria as the car he was driving blew up because of a bomb on Monday.

Carabinieri said the bomb, in the car boot, was remotely activated. Vinci's 70-year-old father Vincenzo was seriously injured in the blast.

He is fighting for his life in hospital.

Vinci, a former medicines salesman, was a candidate in a civic list in the last town council elections. </s> Vibo Valentia, April 10 - A 42-year-old former Calabrina local election candidate, Matteo Vinci, died at Limbadi near Vibo Valentia in Calabria as the car he was driving blew up because of a bomb on Monday. Carabinieri said the bomb, in the car boot, was remotely activated. Vinci's 70-year-old father Vincenzo was seriously injured in the blast. He is fighting for his life in hospital. Vinci, a former medicines salesman, was a candidate in a civic list in the last town council elections. Police on Tuesday arrested a 'Ndrangheta mafia-linked man who publicly quarrelled with Vinci in 2014, 71-year-old Domenico Di Grillo. Di Grillo, the husband of clan chieftains' sister Rosaria Mancuso, was arrested on charges of illegally possessing arms and munitions. </s> A view of Vibo Valentia, close to the scene of the incident. Photo: M.belsito/CC BY-SA 3.0

A man died in Calabria in southern Italy on Monday after his car blew up in a suspected car bomb incident.

The victim, named in Italian media as 42-year-old Matteo Vinci, had run in the most recent town council elections in Limbadi, a town of around 3,700 people.

Vinci's 73-year-old father was also in the car at the time and was seriously injured as a result of the blast. At first, police believed the incident was the result of a gas explosion, but later told reporters they believed the cause was an explosive device left in the Ford Fiesta's boot and possibly activated via radio.

The motive for the apparent attack is not yet clear, although it took place in an area known for mafia activity. The younger Vinci, a former medical salesperson, had also run in 2015 council elections as part of a list called 'Free and Democratic Limbadi'. He was not elected in that vote.

Local councils in Calabria are regularly disbanded over suspected links to organized crime groups, and in fact Limbadi was the first comune to receive such an order, in 1983 -- before the official law against mafia infiltration in public authorities had come into force.

Several publications reported that both victims of Tuesday's apparent attack had a history of disputes with a local mafia-linked family. They had been arrested in 2014 after a fight with members of the Mancuso crime group, according to the Corriere della Calabria.

Police bomb squads were carrying out further checks on the vehicle on Tuesday in order to establish the type of device used, while the 73-year-old remained in hospital after sustaining severe burns. </s> Vibo Valentia, April 10 - A 42-year-old former Calabrina local election candidate, Matteo Vinci, died at Limbadi near Vibo Valentia in Calabria as the car he was driving blew up because of a bomb on Monday. Carabinieri said the bomb, in the car boot, was remotely activated. Vinci's 70-year-old father Vincenzo was seriously injured in the blast. He is fighting for his life in hospital. Vinci, a former medicines salesman, was a candidate in a civic list in the last town council elections. Police on Tuesday arrested a 'Ndrangheta mafia-linked man who publicly quarrelled with Vinci in 2014, 71-year-old Domenico Di Grillo. Di Grillo, the husband of clan chieftains' sister Rosaria Mancuso, was arrested on charges of illegally possessing arms and munitions. Vinci's mother Rosaria Scarpulla said the family would not be intimidated. "We're not scared," she said. "We've been fighting the Mancusos for years to have our rights," she said. Local anti-mafia prosecutors said the "response of the Satte will be strong". </s> Vibo Valeantia, April 9 - A 42-year-old man, Matteo Vinci, died at Limbadi near Vibo Valentia in Calabria as the car he was driving blew up because of a suspected bomb on Monday. Carabinieri said they thought a bomb may have been placed in the car boot. His father Vincenzo was seriously inured in the blast. Vinci, a former medicines salesman, was a candidate in a civicc list in the last town council elections. </s> The extreme right-wing suspect in a shooting rampage that wounded six African migrants in Italy has demonstrated no remorse for his actions and was “lucid and determined, aware of what he had done,” an Italian law enforcement official said Sunday.

Luca Traini, 28, was being held in jail as police investigate him on multiple counts of attempted murder for Saturday’s shooting rampage in the central Italian city of Macerata, with the aggravating circumstance of “racial hatred.”

READ MORE: Italian gunman with far-right ties targets African immigrants in drive-by shooting spree

Traini was an unsuccessful candidate last year in a local election for the anti-migrant Northern League party and friends have been quoted by ANSA as saying he previously had ties with the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and the CasaPound political parties.

Col. Michele Roberti, the Carabineri commander in Macerata, told Sky TG24 that “it’s likely that he carried out this crazy gesture as a sort of retaliation, a sort of vendetta” after a Nigerian man was arrested in the gruesome slaying of an Italian teenager a few days previously in the same city.

WATCH: Four migrants in critical condition after Calais shooting

The dismembered remains of Pamela Mastropietro, 18, were found in two suitcases days after she walked away from a drug rehab community. Police arrested the Nigerian suspect after finding the victim’s bloody clothes in his apartment, along with a receipt from a pharmacy where she had bought a syringe and knives that are consistent with the crime.

Roberti ruled out any connection between Traini and the slain woman.

Police photos showed the shooting suspect with a neo-Nazi tattoo prominently on his forehead and an Italian flag tied around his neck.

READ MORE: Italian gunman with far-right ties targets African immigrants in drive-by shooting spree

One of Traini’s victims, a 29-year-old woman identified only as Jennifer, told the daily La Stampa from her hospital bed that she no longer feels free to walk around the city “with peace of mind” after the attack.

“I never hurt anyone. I was talking and laughing with three other people” when she was struck by the bullet, she told the Turin-based newspaper.

One of the six victims -five African men and Jennifer – was treated and released Saturday. The remaining patients were all in stable condition, with one in intensive care and Jennifer facing surgery on her shoulder, doctors said Sunday.

Her boyfriend told the La Repubblica newspaper that they were waiting at a bus station when he saw a man pointing something at them from a car. He realized then that it was a gun.

“I gave Jennifer a push to get her out of the way and threw myself down. And I heard a shot: Boom,” said Ogie Igbinowania.

Jennifer told La Repubblica that she arrived in Italy seven months ago and joined her boyfriend in Macerata.

“I have always been comfortable here. People are friendly. I don’t know why that guy fired at us,” she said.

The shooting spree also came amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme. Italy has struggled with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the last few years coming across the Mediterranean Sea in smugglers’ boats.

Italy is heading into a general election on March 4 and the head of the rebranded League party, Matteo Salvini, had capitalized on the teen’s killing in campaign appearances even before the shooting Saturday.

Salvini is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament – drawing sharp rebukes that he is using the migrant crisis to foment xenophobia for political gain.

Premier Paolo Gentiloni warned in Rome after the attack that “the state will be particularly severe against whoever thinks of feeding the spiral of violence.” </s> ROME: At least one person was killed and more than 60 others injured on Monday (Aug 6) when a tanker truck crashed into a lorry and exploded, sending a fireball across a busy motorway in the northern Italian city of Bologna.

The blast, which occurred in the early afternoon in the Borgo Panigale area, close to Bologna airport, caused a partial collapse of the flyover, where the explosion took place, onto another road below, filling the scene with flames and black smoke.

A video released by the police shows the moment the tanker ploughed into the back of the lorry, immediately catching fire as another lorry crashed into the back of the blazing tanker, and oncoming traffic screeched to a halt.

The three vehicles, covered by the blanketing smoke, were reduced to little more than ash by a massive explosion that swept across the motorway and could be heard throughout the city.

"I was here (at a nearby restaurant) for work ... at a certain point we heard a violent blast, i thought it was a terrorist attack," Marco Rosadini, whose car is trapped under the flyover, told the daily La Repubblica.

"After the explosion the roof of the restaurant started to collapse. I looked outside and I felt like I was looking at a wall of fire."

It took firefighters nearly two hours to extinguish the fireball, which spread to vehicles parked in a nearby lot of a car dealership.

Then rescuers began the delicate task of looking through the burned out debris to find any victims.

Italian media quoted the Bologna prefecture as saying that two people had been killed, but when asked for confirmation by AFP, a spokeswoman said that the official toll remained one dead, with 68 injured.

However, the Italian fire service told AFP that the number of dead is likely to rise.

Most of the injured suffered burns with police and firefighters among the most seriously hurt.

Others were injured by pieces of flying debris and glass the explosion caused in the surrounding area.

Speaking to television news channel Sky TG24, police officers said that the extremely high temperatures from the fire and the blast caused the road to collapse.

Fears of a terrorist attack still rattle Bologna which just last week marked the anniversary of a far-right attack on the train station that left 85 people dead and more than 200 wounded in 1980.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said more than 100 firefighters had responded to the fiery accident, and the prosecutor has opened an inquiry.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on Facebook that he would go to Bologna on Tuesday to show the government's solidarity with the victims and their families. </s> A man who may have been trying to kill himself has rammed his car into a pizzeria east of Paris, killing a 13-year-old girl and injuring her younger brother and at least 11 others, authorities said.

The driver was immediately arrested. Police said the man's actions in the town of Sept-Sorts were deliberate, but not thought to be terrorism-related.

The 13-year-old girl and her brother were among the restaurant customers eating on the outdoor terrace of Pizzeria Cesena when a man in a BMW accelerated toward them, an official with the national gendarme service said.

The girl died immediately, while the boy's injuries are considered life-threatening, the official said.

At least three others were taken to hospital in a serious condition, and eight more sustained light injuries, said the official.

The incident reignited fears in France after a string of attacks in which a vehicle was used as a weapon.

An Algerian man drove his car into a group of French soldiers last week, and an Islamic extremist truck attack in the French city of Nice left 86 people dead a little more than a year ago.

The man arrested in Monday's attack is thought to have tried to kill himself last week, French Interior Ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television.

Mr Brandet said the man, born in 1985, was not known to intelligence or police. He did not identify him.

Two police officials said the incident is considered over and authorities are not searching for accomplices, but to find out what motivated the driver.

A judicial official said on Monday night that the Paris prosecutor's office, which oversees French terrorism investigations, was not involved in the case because there was no proof of terrorism at this stage.

A security official echoed that there was no evidence of a political or Islamic extremist motive.

The targeted pizzeria is in a shopping area in the town of Sept-Sorts about 40 miles east of Paris near Champagne country.

Police cordoned off a large perimeter of the area.
A car bomb in Limbadi, near Vibo Valentia, Calabria, kills local politician Matteo Vinci and leaves his elderly father critically injured.