Bomb threat in the US Embassy in Minsk :: Charter'97 :: News

At night January 25-26 an unidentified person reported about a bomb threat to the US embassy in Minsk in Staravilenskaya Street. It is the first case of telephone terrorism against the US embassy in Belarus since the horrible terrorist actions of September 11, 2001. Minsk police is looking for the person who called, but with no results so far.

According to the police, the bomb threat was received at 3.10 am, in 25 minutes the embassy informed the police. The Belarusian police were not let on the territory of the embassy, while the security service had not detected any bombs. In any other case it would have called for a mine-clearing group.

The Central Department of Internal Affairs of Minsk is looking for the terrorist. It might be that KGB will get involved into the investigation, but the criminal case has not been launched yet.
The last case of the terrorist action took place on the same street on May 31, 2001. A hand grenade exploded on the territory of the neighboring Russian embassy. It left a shell-hole of 17 centimeters in diameter, there were no injured. It happened before the CIS summit, when President Putin came to Minsk. The US embassy has not received any threats by phone or any other way in the recent years, as Radio Freedom reports.