An Italian anarchist group has said it carried out an attack last Monday on a senior executive of nuclear engineering group Ansaldo Nucleare, BBC News reported.

Roberto Adinolfi, 53, was shot in the leg by a gunman on a motorbike in the northern Italian city of Genoa. He has undergone surgery and colleagues have said his condition is not serious.

The "Olga Cell" of the FAI (Informal Anarchist Federation), made the claim by a letter sent to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

The letter says that the attack "was carried out to punish one of the many sorcerers of the atomic industry".

The Ansaldo group is part of aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica. Four of its managers were targets of attacks in the 1970s and '80s by the far-left Red Brigades movement.

The shooting of Mr Adinolfi has prompted investigators to draw similarities with the previous attacks. Investigative sources have pointed at anarchists involved in extremist activity as possible suspects.

The incident has sparked fears that the shooting could be a signal for sleeper cells to carry out more attacks or spark copycat shootings.