Egypt commandos save Israelis from embassy raid: officials

[1]

Egyptian commandos plucked six Israelis to safety from their Cairo embassy as protesters stormed the building and dumped diplomatic papers from a balcony, an Israeli official said on Saturday.

"Six people were actually trapped in the embassy and there was a real concern for their lives," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "In the end they were successfully rescued by Egyptian commandos."

He said that the six, Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon, other staff and dependants, had all left Egypt but a senior diplomat remained behind.

"We left the deputy ambassador to keep up contact with the Egyptian government," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the head of Egyptian intelligence during the night.

Defence Minister Minister Ehud Barak's office said he called US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta early on Saturday to request help protecting their embassy in Cairo, hours after Egyptian protestors attacked the building.

US President Barack Obama called on Cairo to protect Israel's embassy from the demonstrators.

Israeli news website Ynet on Saturday quoted Netanyahu as thanking Obama for his help.

"The mob attack on the Israeli embassy is a serious incident but could have been worse had the rioters managed to get through the last door and hurt our people," Ynet quoted him as saying.

"I'm glad we managed to prevent a disaster and would like to thank US President Barack Obama for his help," he said.

A former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, said he believed that the documents taken by the raiders were not top secret.

"It may be that our people anticipated something like this and destroyed the most secret things," he told public radio.

"As far as I understand the people got into the 17th floor, the floor which is open to the public for consular business, and there they found consular documents which are not secret and vented their rage on them," he said.

Egypt declared a state of alert after police clashed with protesters who raided the building housing the Israeli embassy.

During the violence, in which one person died of a heart attack and 448 people were injured, according to state television, protesters torched police trucks and attacked regional police headquarters.

Israeli public radio said the six rescued men were security officers. The official said that protesters were elsewhere on the embassy premises while the men were holed up.

"There was one wall between them," he said. "When the violence got out of hand, some 80 (Israelis) were taken out" of Egypt, he said. "All our people are safe and sound."

Netanyahu's office said in a brief statement on Saturday morning that the six had also arrived back in Israel and were well.