FBI probing attacks on US researchers

San Francisco: The FBI is investigating two firebombings targeting scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as the latest in a rash of attacks against biomedical researchers who experiment on animals, authorities said.

One scientist and his family, including two small children, were forced to flee from a second-storey window on Saturday after a firebomb was lit on their front porch, filling the off-campus house with smoke, Santa Cruz police said. An adult was treated for minor injuries at a hospital and released.

Police were investigating the attack as attempted murder, said Santa Cruz police Captain Steve Clark.

"That device had a real potential to put that family in jeopardy," Clark said. He described the bomb as a "Molotov cocktail on steroids". A sprinkler system and a neighbour with a garden hose helped keep the fire from spreading before firefighters arrived to extinguish it, Clark said.

Also on Saturday morning, a firebomb destroyed a car belonging to another researcher parked at faculty housing on campus. Investigators said they were treating the attacks as "domestic terrorism".

Threatening pamphlets

The attacks came four days after police obtained threatening animal rights pamphlets left at a Santa Cruz coffeehouse containing the names and home addresses of UC Santa Cruz scientists.

"Animal abusers everywhere beware," the pamphlets read.

"We know where you live." Molecular biologist David Feldheim, whose front door was charred, was among the researchers on the list, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. According to his website, Feldheim's lab uses mice to study the development of brain functions involved in eyesight.

A spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation press office, which commonly posts messages from groups taking credit for animal rights violence, issued a statement on Sunday saying it had not received any claims of responsibility for the attacks.

"These are odious assaults on individuals and on the principles of free inquiry by which we live," UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal said in a statement on Saturday.