RPG hits US embassy in Athens

The US embassy in Athens was hit on Jan. 12 by a rocket-propelled grenade, causing no injuries but damaging the building. The shell, which pierced the glass-fronted building on the third floor, demolished the personal toilet of the US ambassador, Charles Reis. "It is very likely that this is the work of a domestic group," said Greece's public order minister, Vyron Polydoras. Greek officials said they doubted that the attack was the work of foreign or Islamic terrorists, but rather that of extreme leftists aiming at a specific, symbolic target: the huge seal of the United States, with an eagle against a blue background, affixed to the front of the boxy, modern embassy. The grenade narrowly missed the seal. One of the most expensively protected US embassies in the world–and the most heavily fortified in the Balkans–the building was attacked at 5:58am when security guards where changing shifts. Greek security officials said the grenade was fired from a street opposite by assailants probably riding a motorbike. The blast smashed glass in buildings nearby. Polydoras said the government strongly condemned what was the first significant attack against a US target in Greece for more then a decade. "We believe it is a symbolic act," he said. "It is an attempt to disrupt our country's international relations." He said police were examining the authenticity of phone calls to a private security company claiming responsibility for the attack on behalf of a militant left-wing group. Police are examining the authenticity of two calls claiming responsibility from the group Revolutionary Struggle, which has carried out six bombings since 2003. "There are one or two telephone calls, from unknown callers, who claimed that the Revolutionary Struggle assumes responsibility," Polydoras said. "We cannot rule out that they were genuine." Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility for a May 2006 bomb attack on Greece's culture minister, Giorgos Voulgarakis, in which nobody was injured. The shadowy group has criticized the United States in past statements, citing treatment of prisoners at the US military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Polydoras said police would set up a special task force to investigate the attack, headed by a former counter-terrorism chief who caught the leaders of the November 17 organization, which killed 23 people, including US and British officials, in the mid-1970s. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We all know from history that there are a number of these anarchist groups in Greece, and that they are sometimes violent. I can't tell you if one of those is responsible for this particular attack." Greece's foreign minister, Dora Bakoyannis, visited the embassy, saying she wanted to "express the solidarity of the Greek people following this deplorable action." "Such actions in the past have had a very heavy cost for the country–moral, financial and for the international standing of the country." She said the government would do all it could to prevent a repeat attack. Traffic came to a standstill for more than three hours across parts of central Athens as police sealed off streets around the embassy, a frequent destination for protest groups, to search for evidence. About three hours before the attack on the US embassy, the anarchist group Revolutionary Liberation Action firebombed three banks and the suburban offices of the governing New Democracy party. Branches of Greece's Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and General Bank were damaged in the separate attacks. The bombings were claimed in support of three anarchist prisoners arrested during last May's European Social Forum riot.