US Embassy in Guatemala struck

Gunmen in two vehicles attacked the United States Embassy in Guatemala City with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic gunfire. Two grenades hit the front of the building, but caused only light damage and no casualties. The motive for the attack was not known, and no group immediately claimed responsibility for it.

Monitor Latin America corresponent James Nelson Goodsell reports the embassy, on the broad Avenida Reforma in an uptown residential and hotel zone of the city , has been the target of leftist guerrillas on two other occasions during the past year.

The incident comes only a week after young officers in the Guatemalan Army installed a new military-dominated goverment in the Central American country -- and came only a day after the Reagan administration in Washington recognized the new regime.

Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, the leading figure in the new government, expressed regret over the incident -- and units of the Army were more in evidence, patrolling streets near the embassy as Army intelligence personnel sought information on the groups responsible for the shooting.