Rome — Three Italian police officers were killed early Tuesday and more than a dozen others injured when an explosion ripped through a farmhouse near the northern city of Verona, as officers tried to serve an eviction order, officials said.

The blast leveled the two-story home in the town of Castel d'Azzano, about six miles southwest of Verona. Authorities say it was triggered deliberately by residents who had been refusing to leave the property.

Officer "were struck by an intentional explosion of a gas tank," said Col. Claudio Pagano, the commander of the Verona Carabinieri police force. "It was an absolutely senseless act."

The farmhouse blew up shortly after dawn as a team of Carabinieri and other law enforcement officers entered the property, which had been illegally occupied for m

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