U.S. responses to protestors' attack on embassy.

• Author: Crook, John R.

Large, angry demonstrations in Belgrade followed Kosovo's declaration of independence and U.S. recognition of the new state. In February 2008, a group of protestors attacked the U.S. Embassy, broke into the chancery, and set a fire in an area outside the building's secure "hard line." Other countries' embassies nearby also were attacked. (1) The U.S. embassy had little or no local police protection at the time, leading to strong U.S. protests, later described by the State Department spokesman.

MR. MCCORMACK: ... [Secretary of State Rice] directed [Under Secretary for Political Affairs Burns] to call the Serbian Prime Minister as well as the Serbian Foreign Minister. The message was very clear that the situation was intolerable, that they ... needed to act immediately to provide the adequate security forces so that our embassy compound and our personnel were not under attack.

He made it very clear to the Foreign Minister that we would hold the Serbian Government personally responsible for the safety and well-being of our embassy employees. He noted ... that the security that was provided was completely inadequate to the task and that we expected them to act immediately and that we did not expect a repeat of the situation in the future. We received assurances from the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Kostunica, that there would not be a repeat of this episode and we will hold them to that.

QUESTION: And they were not, at that point, providing the security you thought was necessary?

MR. MCCORMACK: ... [T]he bottom line is that the security present at the time of the protestors approaching our embassy was inadequate....

Now, they were never able to breach the so-called hardline, the secure area, so ... they got to part of the building that was ... reception areas and not the secure parts of the embassy.

The...