Attackers fire rocket at US embassy in Athens

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By Karolos Grohmann, Reuters

Unknown attackers fired a rocket at the U.S. embassy in Athens on Friday but no one was hurt, Greek and U.S. officials said.

Greek anti-terrorist officers were on the scene of the early morning attack, which shattered windows and woke up nearby residents in the central Athens area.

"I am treating this as a very serious attack," U.S. ambassador to Athens, Charles Ries, told reporters outside the mission. "The embassy was attacked in a senseless act of violence. There were no injuries."

Greek police said the rocket was launched from a building across the road from the embassy building and landed inside a toilet on the third floor.

"The projectile caused slight damage to the facade's glass and the ceiling," police said in a statement.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni rushed to the embassy to meet Ries and condemn the attack.

"Such acts have cost us dearly in the past," she told reporters. "The government will do everything in its power so they are not repeated."

It was the most serious attack against the mission since February 1996, when assailants fired a rocket at the back of the compound, causing minor damage to three diplomatic vehicles and some surrounding buildings.

Dozens of police cars surrounded the embassy and hundred of police cordoned off all roads in the area, including a major boulevard in front of the mission. Police helicopters hovered overhead.

Local residents called in to state television saying they had felt the explosion, which shattered some windows.

"It was a huge explosion, the ground shook. I woke up and rushed to the balcony to see what happened," a local resident, who was not identified, told Greek state TV.

Greek protesters often march to the U.S. embassy and the heavily-guarded building, surrounded by a 3-meter (9-feet)-high steel fence, has guards are posted at every entrance and at street corners around it.

Greece's biggest domestic security threat, the leftist November 17 guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the 1996 rocket attack. It has also killed U.S. and other foreign diplomats in Greece, but was dismantled in 2002.

In November last year, Greek riot police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators marching to the U.S. embassy in Athens who chanted slogans including "Bush the butcher, out of Iraq" and "The USA is the real terrorist."

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I'm just glad no one was hurt.

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Greek leftists behind US embassy attack: minister

ATHENS: Anonymous callers have claimed that the Greek leftist guerrilla group Revolutionary Struggle was behind a rocket attack on the United States embassy in Athens on Friday, Greece's Public Order Minister said.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=15993

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Very glad nobody was hurt.

Two months ago my dad and I were walking in front of that building arguing over whether or not Greece was full of anti-American sentiment. Guess we got some kind of an answer...

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sounds like it was an attention getter....for this organization

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Very glad nobody was hurt.

Two months ago my dad and I were walking in front of that building arguing over whether or not Greece was full of anti-American sentiment. Guess we got some kind of an answer...

Greece has had an active anti-American leftist movement since the 1940s or 1950s.

[Alex+R 0]

Very glad nobody was hurt.

Two months ago my dad and I were walking in front of that building arguing over whether or not Greece was full of anti-American sentiment. Guess we got some kind of an answer...

Greece has had an active anti-American leftist movement since the 1940s or 1950s.

Yeah, unfortunately we know that...

We were more talking about the population. Because they've always hated Jews, and it appears that though they now dress in a more Western-European way, they still hate Jews, but also have moved on to hating Americans as a group. That was just our perception of the general population.