ATHENS, Jan 12: Attackers fired a rocket at the US embassy in Athens early on Friday, damaging the building but causing no casualties, officials said. Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras said the authorities were investigating a claim that an extreme left-wing group, Revolutionary Struggle, staged the attack. Revolutionary Struggle has staged other operations in recent years which have made it the most feared extremist group in Greece.

A police source said investigators found the remains of a Russian-made anti-tank rocket at the embassy, which is on one of Athens’ busiest highways and is one of the country’s best-protected buildings.

“I’m treating (this) as a very serious attack,” US ambassador Charles Ries told reporters outside the modern glass-fronted building. “We did not expect anything, but the embassy is always guarded carefully,” said Ries.The US embassy in Athens and the US consulate in the northern city of Salonika were closed for security reasons on Friday. 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.—AFP