17n Rocket Attack Agains Us Embassy in Greece in 1996
U.S. Diplomatic mission in Athens Is Attacked
ATHENS, Jan. 12 — An antitank grenade was fired into the heavily fortified American Embassy hither just before dawn today. The building was empty, only the attack underscored deep anti-American sentiment here and revived fears of a new circular of homegrown terror.
Greek officials said they doubted the attack was the work of strange or Islamic terrorists, but rather that of regrouped extreme leftists aiming at a specific, symbolic target: a huge American seal, of a double-headed eagle against a blue background, affixed to the front of the indigestible, modern embassy near downtown.
The round narrowly missed the seal, punching through a window a few anxiety higher up and landing in a bathroom on the embassy's tertiary story, where the administrator's office is located.
The damage was described every bit minimal. But Charles Ries, the American ambassador, said: "We treat information technology every bit a very serious attack. In that location tin can be no justification for such a senseless act of violence."
Panayiotis Stathis, spokesman for the Public Order Ministry building, said, "This was a violent act aimed to provoke Greek public opinion and disturb relations with the U.s.."
As Mr. Stathis spoke to reporters this night outside the diplomatic mission, a demonstrator waved a sign that underscored Greece's often uneasy relations with the United States, on bug from the war in Iraq to the tensions between Greece and Turkey. "The C.I.A. was behind this," the sign read.
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Greek officials said a phone call placed anonymously to a private security visitor used by the embassy claimed the attack was carried out by Revolutionary Struggle, a Marxist group with potent anti-American sentiments.
Homegrown terror has largely waned since Greek authorities dismantled the virtually mortiferous groups in the run-up to the 2004 Olympic Games here. But in that relative lull, Revolutionary Struggle has emerged as the virtually agile of a new generation of small, shadowy Greek terror groups.
Information technology has claimed responsibleness for bombings at a courtroom edifice in Athens and the economical ministry building, an attack 13 months ago that wounded two people. It also claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt terminal May against the civilization minister.
Despite the phone calls, Greek officials did non immediately take the claim of responsibility to exist genuine, equally they waited for a more detailed proclamation from the attackers.
"Nosotros're investigating whether in fact this claim is true," Vyron Polydoras, the public guild minister, told reporters after visiting the embassy, which was closed for the day, its flag at half-staff.
Maria Bossis, one of Greece'south top terror experts, speculated that the attack — described besides-planned — had a purpose across making a strong and violent anti-American statement. She said she believed the grouping was besides aiming at establishing supremacy amongst the ten groups in competition since the government dismantled Nov 17, the well-nigh notorious of the leftist terror groups.
"This attack volition determine who the boss is amongst the terrorists," said Ms. Bossis, a professor at the Greek Higher of Defense and a former governmental adviser on terrorism.
She also put some blame on the government hither, which she said had not remained equally aggressive against leftist terror groups as it had been before the Olympics.
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"This is the outcome of unfinished work by the authorities in its crackdown against terrorism," she said.
The grenade was launched at 5:58 a.yard., plainly from across the six lanes of Vassilisis Sophia Boulevard, the master north-south road in central Athens in the upscale, densely populated neighborhood known every bit Ilissia. Tassoula Foumeli, a retired seamstress, said she was in bed when of a sudden the explosion went off, diggings out the windows in the basis-floor bedroom.
"The explosion was and then loud I couldn't even hear the cracking windows," she said. "I'm nervous and I'1000 mad."
Mad, she and other residents said, partly at the anti-American demonstrators who have rallied, at times violently, for years in front of the embassy, ringed past apartment buildings. Merely some of her anger, she said, was at American policies that she said provoked the demonstrators and angered many ordinary citizens.
"Not everything is justified," she said, referring to violent protests. "But at the same time, you kind of wonder why the United states of america is meddling in the affairs of other states. This is shown virtually recently in Republic of iraq. Doesn't the U.s. have its own country? Does information technology have to poke its nose elsewhere? I am seeing suffering in Republic of iraq."
Mr. Stathis, the spokesman for the Public Society Ministry building, said the grenade was a Russian model, manufactured in various Eastern European counties. He said that model has never been used by the Greek military. He said that both Greek and American officials were investigating the incident, collecting evidence from the debris of the explosion, from surrounding buildings and reviewing security cameras posted around the embassy.
The strike against the diplomatic mission here was not unprecedented. On Feb. 15, 1996, another antitank rocket hit an outside wall of the embassy, dissentious three diplomatic vehicles.
While no grouping claimed responsibleness, American officials believe information technology had been committed by November 17, which had also been blamed over the years for killing 23 people — including American, British and Turkish officials — and for dozens of bomb attacks.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/world/europe/12cnd-greece.html
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