Shooting injures Greek policeman

GREECE: Gunmen attacked a riot police unit in Athens Monday, seriously wounding a 21-year-old policeman in an escalation of violence after the fatal police shooting of a teenager last month sparked Greece's worst riots in decades.

The pre-dawn attack was aimed at a riot police unit stationed outside the Culture Ministry in the center of the capital, police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis said, adding that the policeman had been hospitalised in serious condition.

The policeman was being treated for two gunshot wounds, one to the thigh and one near the shoulder, and was undergoing surgery in a central Athens hospital, Panos Efstathiou, head of the Health Ministry's operations center, said on state television.

A police official, who asked not to be named because the information had not yet been officially released, said two men - one of them armed with a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle - had sprayed the police unit with gunfire.

The attack comes nearly two weeks after gunmen opened fire with two automatic rifles against a riot police bus as it passed by a university campus outside the city center on Dec. 23. None of the about 20 police on board the bus were injured in that shooting.

Police have frequently come under attack from protesters throwing gasoline bombs during two weeks of riots sparked by the Dec. 6 death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in a police shooting in the often volatile Exarchia district, while masked men have also attacked police stations with gasoline bombs.

Athens, Monday, AP