Athens and Thessaloniki were ablaze on Saturday and Sunday as people, mostly youths, protesting against the death of an Exarchia teenager rioted, attacking shops, businesses and destroying at least 70 cars with incendiary bombs.

He riots were started late on Saturday when a group of youths attacked a police car in central Athens; from there the violence spread like wildfire throughout the country, many Greek cities looking like war zones.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said a senior police official who requested anonymity because of his involvement in the investigation. “The tension is so thick you can almost cut it with a knife.”

Although the exact circumstances surrounding the shooting are so far unclear, the official word from a police statement released on Sunday is that it happened when 30 youths engaged two police officers, with many throwing stones at the cops, in the central district of Exarchia (a ‘haven’ of leftwing extremists). The officers left their car to face the gang of teenagers, and fired “three shots that resulted in the death of the minor.” The minor, Andreas Grigoropoulos, was 15.

According to Greek media and www.indymedia.com, a website popular with leftist youths, Grigoropoulos had been shot in the chest and later died on his way to a local hospital.

The officers responsible, who were members of the Greek elite police corps, have been suspended pending promises of “exemplary punishment” for them and anyone found responsible by authorities.

“It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person, let alone a minor, loses their life,” said Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos. “The loss of life,” he told an urgent news conference on Sunday, “is something that is inconceivable in a democracy.”

The shooting caused widespread riots, as hundreds of angry youths ravaging the streets of Athens hours after the incident, throwing incendiary bombs, rocks and slabs of concrete at police who responded with tear gas.

Private television stations interrupted regular programming, reporting on the bloody street fights, the worst seen in the country in recent years.

Young militants, dressed in black, smashed open storefronts, attacked bank branches, torched dozens of garbage containers and cars along the capital city Athens’ commercial district streets.

The turmoil spread to the second largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki, as well as a number of other cities, including Chania on the largest Greek island, Crete.

The riots have so far resulted in no deaths, but the riots caused a number of cities across the country looking like war zones, with broken glass, burnt appliances and the stench of smoke and tear gas everywhere. Six people were arrested for looting goods from the remains of destroyed department stores and boutiques.

Athenian authorities readied for further violence at a scheduled demonstration later on Sunday.

Minister Pavlopoulos put forth his resignation early Sunday but Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis did not accept it. In a further statement by Pavlopoulos, he called for restraint:

''People have the right to protest and will do so, but while the pain and grief caused by the minor's death is understandable, no outrage can lead to the violence and destruction of private property that was witnessed.''