A Russian anti-tank rocket was used in an attack yesterday against the US embassy in Athens which caused minor damage to the building's interior but no casualties, police said.
Officers scouring the site of the attack -- which occurred on one of Athens' busiest highways and against one of the country's best-protected buildings -- found remains of the Russian-made rocket, a police source said.
Police said the rocket penetrated the glass-front building near the front-entrance eagle emblem and exploded inside, damaging a toilet on the third floor, which also houses the ambassador's office.
Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras said authorities were investigating a claim that the attack was carried out by an extreme left wing group, Revolutionary Struggle, which has staged other operations in recent years.
"I'm treating [this] as a very serious attack," US ambassador Charles Ries told reporters outside the embassy, a modern glass-front building.
"We did not expect anything, but the embassy is always guarded carefully," said Ries, who declined to label the attack as terrorism and added that he intended to reopen the embassy as soon as possible.
Both the US embassy in Athens and the consulate in the northern Greek city of Salonika were closed for security reasons.
US institutions, banks and companies have been frequently targeted by militant groups in Greece in recent decades. A CIA station chief was assassinated in Athens in 1975.
Polydoras said yesterday's strike constituted "an attempt to revive terrorist [activity]" which would fail.
The missile was fired at 5:58am, the public order ministry said in a statement. There were no injuries.
"All evidence points to the rocket having been fired from an adjacent worksite lot, where a building was recently demolished," a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity.
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