Protesters Storm U.S. Embassy in Serbia - Set Fire!
Protesters Storm U.S. Embassy in Serbia and Set Fire Over Kosovo Independence <--(Click for Source Location)
Thursday , February 21, 2008
Rioters stormed the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, on Thursday and started a fire in protest of Kosovo's declaration of independence earlier this week.
The situation in Belgrade is serious, but the embassy building is secure and the fire has been extinguished, U.S. officials tell FOX News.
Sources have provided conflicting reports on how extensive the breach of the U.S. Embassy was. Some told FOX News that no protesters made it into the building, which has been closed this week.
Other reports from the Associated Press noted masked attackers had gained entry and tried to throw furniture from an office. The reports also said a blaze had broken out inside one of the offices.
The neighboring Croatian Embassy also was attacked by the same group.
Crowds outside cheered and chanted. Riot police drove armored jeeps down the street and fired tear gas to clear the crowd.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. ambassador to Serbia was at his home and in contact with U.S. officials.
Serbia has "a responsibility now to devote the adequate resources to ensure that that facility is protected," McCormack said.
The protesters appeared to have been in the Embassy's consular building area, McCormack said. U.S. security officials and Marine guards were in a separate part of the compound, the chancery, but no staff were present at the Embassy, he said.
More than a dozen nations have recognized Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
But the declaration by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership has been rejected by Serbia's government and the ethnic Serbians who populate northern Kosovo. Russia, China and numerous other nations have also condemned the declaration, saying it sets a precedent that separatist groups around the world will seek to emulate.
Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Belgrade's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission has governed Kosovo since, with more than 16,000 NATO troops and KFOR, a multiethnic force, policing the province.
But Serbia — and Kosovo's Serbs, who make up less than 10 percent of Kosovo's population — refuse to give up Kosovo, a territory considered the ancient cradle of Serbs' state and religion.
Earlier Thursday, police estimated that about 150,000 people had attended a rally in the Serbian capital. The crowd waved Serbian flags and carried signs reading "Stop USA terror." One group set fire to a red-and-black Albanian flag.
