2 Hurt as Bomb Rips U.S. Army Center in Brussels

A car bomb heavily damaged a U.S. Army social center today and injured two American guards. An extreme leftist group claimed responsibility for the attack, the eighth bombing in Belgium in four months.

Police said the two military police guards were slightly injured by flying glass from the bombing, which was less than a mile from NATO headquarters.

In a communique received by the Brussels daily Le Soir, the Fighting Communist Cells linked itself to a West German terrorist group and warned of further actions that could “wound or kill Yankee military and their accomplices.”

The 3,300-word French-language statement said: “We dedicate our attack to the fighters of the (West German terrorist group) Red Army Faction who struggle today, by means of a collective hunger strike, against the detention-extermination conditions in special jails” in West Germany.

In recent months, the two groups have claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks against NATO-related targets in Belgium and West Germany. These attacks caused significant property damage, but no serious injuries.

Police said the car bomb exploded at 3:30 a.m. inside a small passenger car parked in front of the three-story building on the eastern edge of Brussels. The blast blew out all the windows in the building and wrecked its entrance hall.