In days past, this might have provoked military action from either Britain or the US. Nowadays, nothing will happen except strongly-worded letters: US, British diplomats attacked in Zimbabwe.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — U.S. and British diplomats were attacked Thursday as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe and a U.S. Embassy staffer was beaten, an embassy spokesman said.

U.S. Ambassador James McGee, who was not with the convoy, told CNN that Zimbabwean police and military officers and so-called war veterans, a group of often violent supporters of President Robert Mugabe, were responsible for what he called an “illegal action.”

“The war veterans threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out of the vehicles and accompanied the police to a station nearby,” McGee said, saying he was in touch with the group by mobile phone.

Five Americans, four Britons and three Zimbabweans were in the three-car convoy, he said.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Paul Engelstad said the group was still being held some six hours after being stopped at a roadblock just north of Harare.

A British government spokesman later said the British diplomats had been released unharmed. But Downing Street spokesman Michael Ellam did not discuss the status of the American diplomats.