"Police found a homemade bomb placed under the Saudi Arabian embassy car, which was on fire," a police official said. "There was little damage and no injuries."

Last April, two cars belonging to the Saudi Arabian embassy were torched in Athens on consecutive days. A leftist group calling itself "Subversive Cell" claimed responsibility for those attacks. It said they were committed in response to the trial of a suspected criminal involved in a bank robbery.

Cars belonging to diplomats, businessmen and politicians have often been targeted by Greek anarchists. The police shooting of a teenage boy in December sparked the country's worst riots for decades, fuelled by anger over corruption and economic hardship.