The blast smashed glass in the front of the building near the U.S. emblem of the embassy. Police did not report any injuries and embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

“This is an act of terrorism. We don’t know where from,” Attica Police Chief Asimakis Golfis said. “There was a shell that exploded in the toilets of the building … It was fired from street level.”
Authorities were searching apartment buildings and a hospital nearby.

A Reuters source says, “This was a rocket attack launched from a building across the street. It landed inside a toilet on the third floor of the embassy.”

The investigation is on:

The explosion, at 5.58 a.m. this morning, was caused by a rocket fired from outside the Embassy compound, according to a statement from the Greek Public Order Ministry, posted on its Web site…

“This is a very serious attack,’” U.S. Ambassador Charles Ries said in comments to reporters outside the building, which is located in central Athens on Vasillissis Sophias Avenue.

The embassy was targeted once before in 1996.

Investigators are “examining what they believed was the device used to fire the rocket shell from a construction site near the embassy.”

AP’s calling the ordinance an “anti-tank shell.” Anyone know anything about those? Here’s a wikipedia entry on the term, for what it’s worth.

Jawa notes that Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns spoke in Athens Wednesday.

Allah was on it early, and has the goods.

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