Iran's response to Irbil Consulate attack?

The New York Times


January 12, 2007
U.S. Embassy in Athens Hit by Rocket Attack
By ANTHEE CARASSAVA

ATHENS, Jan. 12 — Shortly before sunrise today, an anti-tank missile ripped through the United States embassy here, rocking the compound but causing no injuries.

Fired from the street and over a 10-foot security wall, the rocket smashed the glass front of the building, by the soaring U.S. emblem.

Debris from the 18-inch-long rocket, said a senior police official, was found near the U.S. ambassador’s office, on the third floor of the heavily guarded building.

“We have yet to locate the staging area of this rocket attack,” said Assimakis Golfas, the head police chief of the greater Athens area. “We are scouring the region, mainly buildings across from the embassy.”

Vyron Polydoras, the public order minister, said an anonymous caller, claiming to be a member of the Revolutionary Struggle terror group, had telephoned a local security company to assume responsibility for the 6 a.m. attack.

“We’re investigating whether in fact this claim is true,” Mr. Polydoras said after visiting the site of the attack.

Revolutionary Struggle, a Marxist group with strong anti-American sentiments, emerged in 2003, bombing an Athens courthouse complex.

The group remains the most active Greek terror organization since the downfall of the country’s most deadly urban guerrilla group, November 17, blamed for killing 23 people — including U.S., British and Turkish officials — and for dozens of bomb attacks.

Today’s hit against the U.S. mission was not unprecedented.

Eleven years ago, on Feb. 15, 1996, an anti-tank rocket hit an outside wall of the embassy, causing damage to three diplomatic vehicles. While no group claimed responsibility, American officials believe the attack was committed by November 17.

The November 17 guerrilla group was dismantled in 2002. Since then, however, a string of copycat terror cells have emerged, targeting government buildings and foreign business interests.

This morning’s attack forced the embassy to re-evaluate its security, already among the tightest at American diplomatic missions.

Charles Ries, the U.S. ambassador, said this morning that the embassy neither suspected nor had been warned of a pending attack.

“We can’t speculate who’s behind this,” Mr. Ries told reporters. “Still, treat it as a very serious attack. There can be no justification for such a senseless act of violence.”

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Washington, was awakened to the news that the U.S. embassy in Greece “was under attack,” an embassy official said.

The tightly guarded U.S. mission is surrounded by a high steel fence. Guards are posted at every entrance and at street corners around it.

Authorities this morning were searching apartment buildings near the U.S. embassy, a hospital and a nearby construction site for evidence that could explain how terrorists managed to penetrate the capital’s most guarded district and attack the U.S. mission.

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

This morning’s explosion brought traffic to a chaotic standstill for more than three hours, as scores of policemen cordoned off streets around the embassy. Police helicopters monitored the sky, circling over the American embassy.

A strong anti-American sentiment runs through a segment of the Greek population. Still, senior Greek government officials sped to the side of the U.S. ambassador to condemn the attack.

“Such actions in the past have had a very heavy cost for the country — moral, financial and for the international standing of the country,” said Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, who visited the embassy after the blast. “The Greek government is determined to undertake every effort to not allow such phenomena to be repeated in the future.”