Embassies Security

Massed outside the Iraqi Embassy's gate one afternoon last week, several hundred demonstrators besieged the building with chants of "Long Live Khomeini!" It was a raucous display that, during the last 50 years, would have gotten them arrested instantly. But on this day, as embassy staff members peered angrily out their windows at the spectacle, police just looked on. This demonstration was legal.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- President Obama today defended his administration's efforts to protect American diplomats around the world in the wake of a round of violent attacks on embassies in the Middle East. A journalist at an afternoon town hall meeting here asked Obama why his administration “wasn't better prepared with more security" at the time of the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed last week. Obama did not directly address the point about preparation in advance, but he said that as soon as officials saw the initial events near the embassy in Cairo before the attack in Benghazi, his administration worked with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to take precautions.

Moammar Kadafi said Friday that he had taken steps to protect the embassies of countries that favor sanctions against Libya. The Libyan leader's assurances came a day after Libyan rioters wrecked the Venezuelan Embassy, smashing furniture and ripping up the garden, and tried to storm the Russian mission, wrecking cars when they were turned back. They also threw rocks at the Austrian mission and held angry protests outside the Belgian, French and Italian embassies.

President Evo Morales declared a U.S. Embassy security officer an "undesirable person" after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and 30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia. It was not immediately clear whether Morales intended to seek the expulsion of the official, Vincent Cooper, who according to the U.S. Embassy was recalled to Washington for consultations. Embassy spokesman Eric Watnik insisted that no embassy employee had asked the scholar or Peace Corps volunteers to participate in gathering intelligence.

A stray cat triggered a land mine blast inside the French Embassy compound in West Beirut on Monday, police said. They said the explosion, in which the cat was the only casualty, was the third at the heavily guarded embassy in the last few years and the second involving a feline intruder. Two French guards were injured last year when they accidentally triggered a mine planted in the embassy compound as part of its anti-terrorist defenses.

A week after the devastating double bombings in East Africa, a jittery State Department on Friday ordered a partial evacuation of the diplomatic staff at its embassy in Albania and warned private citizens there to leave because of the dangers of terrorism. The State Department said the decision to suspend all operations at the embassy was attributable to recent threats by Islamic extremists against the United States and its citizens. A statement warned of "the possibility that the U.S.

Police tightened security at the U.S. and French embassies in the Norwegian capital on Wednesday amid fears that they could be the target of attacks as tension rises in the Persian Gulf, officials here said.

President Evo Morales declared a U.S. Embassy security officer an "undesirable person" after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and 30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia. It was not immediately clear whether Morales intended to seek the expulsion of the official, Vincent Cooper, who according to the U.S. Embassy was recalled to Washington for consultations. Embassy spokesman Eric Watnik insisted that no embassy employee had asked the scholar or Peace Corps volunteers to participate in gathering intelligence.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- President Obama today defended his administration's efforts to protect American diplomats around the world in the wake of a round of violent attacks on embassies in the Middle East. A journalist at an afternoon town hall meeting here asked Obama why his administration “wasn't better prepared with more security" at the time of the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed last week. Obama did not directly address the point about preparation in advance, but he said that as soon as officials saw the initial events near the embassy in Cairo before the attack in Benghazi, his administration worked with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to take precautions.

A House subcommittee today accused the State Department of withholding information on security problems at the Moscow embassy and subpoenaed department files on the matter. "I am shocked and chagrined that the State Department would act in this way when they had indicated that they would cooperate," said Rep. Daniel A. Mica (D-Fla.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on overseas operations.

The House, fearing another terrorist attack like the twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa a year ago, voted Wednesday to more than quadruple the Clinton administration's proposed spending to fortify America's embassies worldwide. Congressional concern for the safety of diplomats and other Americans abroad has grown with the approach of the Aug. 7 anniversary of the bombings that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands.

In the mid-1980s the State Department estimated it would cost $3.5 billion to upgrade the security of hundreds of its overseas diplomatic missions, facilities whose vulnerability to terrorist attacks had been searingly demonstrated by the bombing of the Beirut Embassy in 1983. Only about one-fourth of that amount has been appropriated over the years since. The folly of this limited response was driven home last month with the bombings of the U.S.

On June 12, about six weeks before the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S. Department of State posted a warning about potential "terrorist action . . . within the next several weeks" in the Persian Gulf. The posting encouraged U.S. citizens living abroad to check in with their embassies or consulates in those countries and warned U.S. citizens to check the department's public announcements, travel warnings and consular information sheets before making travel plans.

A week after the devastating double bombings in East Africa, a jittery State Department on Friday ordered a partial evacuation of the diplomatic staff at its embassy in Albania and warned private citizens there to leave because of the dangers of terrorism. The State Department said the decision to suspend all operations at the embassy was attributable to recent threats by Islamic extremists against the United States and its citizens. A statement warned of "the possibility that the U.S.

Moammar Kadafi said Friday that he had taken steps to protect the embassies of countries that favor sanctions against Libya. The Libyan leader's assurances came a day after Libyan rioters wrecked the Venezuelan Embassy, smashing furniture and ripping up the garden, and tried to storm the Russian mission, wrecking cars when they were turned back. They also threw rocks at the Austrian mission and held angry protests outside the Belgian, French and Italian embassies.

Massed outside the Iraqi Embassy's gate one afternoon last week, several hundred demonstrators besieged the building with chants of "Long Live Khomeini!" It was a raucous display that, during the last 50 years, would have gotten them arrested instantly. But on this day, as embassy staff members peered angrily out their windows at the spectacle, police just looked on. This demonstration was legal.

The House, fearing another terrorist attack like the twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa a year ago, voted Wednesday to more than quadruple the Clinton administration's proposed spending to fortify America's embassies worldwide. Congressional concern for the safety of diplomats and other Americans abroad has grown with the approach of the Aug. 7 anniversary of the bombings that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands.

Three gunmen in a speeding automobile opened fire today on a station wagon carrying three U.S. Embassy officials to work, slightly injuring the embassy's security chief and his deputy before speeding away. Sources at the U.S. Embassy said Dennis Williams, the security chief, and his deputy, John Hucke, suffered superficial injuries from splintered glass and were treated at a nearby hospital and released.