Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509140089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
The grenade penetrated the ornate embassy wall and was stopped by a large copying machine, the embassy said. No one was in the copying room at the time, and there were no injuries.
About a half-hour later, authorities found a portable grenade launcher in the archway of a courtyard entrance directly across the 12-lane avenue from the embassy, about 100 yards from the point of impact. A face mask, a glove and a three-foot-long paper bag that could have been used to conceal the weapon were also found.
``I was on the phone with someone at the time and I said, `Oh my God, we've been bombed!''' embassy spokesman Richard Hoagland said.
The grenade mangled the copying machine, scorched a portion of the embassy wall and smashed several windows. It was fired at 4:25 p.m. from across one of Moscow's busiest and broadest boulevards. In addition to the heavy presence of Russian and U.S. embassy guards on duty at that hour, there are nearly always Russian traffic policemen and hundreds of motorists in the area.
The grenade attack came a day before U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott is due in Moscow to discuss increasingly strident Russian denunciations of the U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign against the Serbs in Bosnia.
A Russian television anchorman speculated Wednesday night that the incident may have been related to tough criticism by President Boris Yeltsin and other Russian officials of U.S. and Western policy on Bosnia. Tuesday, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the NATO bombing threatens the Serbs with ``genocide.''
Embassy officials said they had received no warnings or threats before the explosion and that no one had claimed responsibility in the hours afterward.
``This appears to be an isolated incident,'' Hoagland said.
Russian investigators declined to speculate about the identity or motivation of the perpetrator, other than to guess he may have been deranged.
``This is not a reflection of the relations between our countries. It's the act of a lone maniac,'' a senior Russian security official told the Associated Press, asking that his name not be used.
The embassy said it had taken unspecified measures to protect its compound, which includes a number of buildings and hundreds of Russian and American employees.
Russian authorities also stepped up security at U.S. diplomatic missions. A spokesman for the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor agency to the KGB, told the Reuter news agency that security had been tightened at all U.S. diplomatic buildings in the capital as well as at the consulates in St. Petersburg, the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok.
The Russian Interfax news agency reported that police had compiled a composite sketch of a suspect, a man in his twenties wearing light-colored jeans. The sketch was not made public and there was no indication how the drawing had been made or whether witnesses had seen an attacker.
After the explosion, police cordoned off the recently refurbished, mustard-and-white embassy building, which occupies a prominent corner of Moscow's Garden Ring Road less than a mile from the Kremlin.
The U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg last month issued a warning that it had received ``credible'' information indicating Americans in the city might be in danger of violent attacks. The origin and nature of the threat were murky, and the consulate withdrew the warning shortly after it was issued.
The U.S. Embassy here has been relatively secure from attack over the years. Although there have been several fires in the compound and occasional demonstrations on the sidewalk outside, the embassy has not generally been a target for overt anti-American sentiment.
The embassy compound includes office buildings, residences for a number of diplomats and their families, a cafeteria, recreational facilities such as a swimming pool and gym, a post office, a bar and a grocery store. The building hit Wednesday, known as the old embassy building, was built in 1953 and is the oldest and largest of the major structures in the compound.
Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, was in Washington on Wednesday. The charge d'affaires, Richard Miles, declined to comment.
by CNB