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German embassy siezed by anti hussein iraqis { August 21 2002 }

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   http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/international/europe/21GERM.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/international/europe/21GERM.html

August 21, 2002
Anti-Hussein Iraqis Briefly Seize Embassy in Berlin
By STEVEN ERLANGER


BERLIN, Aug. 20 — An Iraqi opposition group seized control of Iraq's embassy here this afternoon and held the small staff hostage until the German police stormed the compound, freeing the captives and arresting five members of the group.

Two people were slightly injured in the police action, which took about five minutes, the police said.

The police moved in as soon as the government of Iraq gave permission. The embassy is legally sovereign Iraqi territory and recently moved to Berlin from Bonn, opening on July 17.

Spraying pepper gas or mace at Iraqi guards, the hostage-takers entered the new embassy, in Zehlendorf, a rich, leafy residential area of southwestern Berlin, on a perfect, sunny, late summer's day. The small staff, which included some armed Iraqi guards, was taken hostage. Two hostages were quickly released with minor injuries, one suffering the effects of pepper spray and one in shock.

As police officers gathered, the previously unknown group, calling itself the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany, issued a statement demanding an end to the rule of President Saddam Hussein and saying its action was a "first step" to that end.

"The liberation of Iraqi soil begins today," the statement said. The group promised a "peaceful and temporary" action. The building was soon surrounded by some 200 German police officers and the incident ended about five hours after it began.

"At 7.40 p.m. the building was entered and five people were arrested," said a police spokeswoman, Christine Rother. "Two were injured but only lightly."

The police then questioned the hostage-takers, who did not resist arrest, she said.

The acting ambassador, Shamil al-Mohammed, who is ranked as the first secretary, was inside the building, the police said, and was one of those slightly injured in the storming that ending the affair.

Although neighbors said they thought they had heard gunshots from the embassy, the police at first said they could not confirm that the occupiers were armed.

It remains unclear how the group entered the mission, which the German police have responsibility for guarding.

A member of the opposition group had told the Arabic television network, al-Jazeera, that the group was not armed. The police later said the hostage-takers had a pistol, a device for firing tear gas or pepper spray, an electric baton and an ax.

Mustafa Isaid, a reporter with Deutsche Welle, spoke to one of the occupiers, who said, about an hour into the operation, that they were having "a discussion with the staff and that everything is peaceful."

In a telephone interview, Mr. Isaid said the man, who did not identify himself, had said the group "wanted to free a piece of Iraq and were representing the 22 million people of Iraq."

In a statement, Iraq blamed the United States and Israel. "Armed terrorists from the mercenaries of the American and Zionist intelligence services attacked our embassy in Berlin, hurting an employee and holding the rest of the employees inside the building," the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It was not clear precisely how many people were inside.

The statement said the ministry was in contact with the German authorities over "swift measures to evacuate the embassy from these mercenary terrorists and to protect the lives of the staff from this terrorist aggression."

Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization that represents a variety of opposition groups, said his organization had no advance knowledge that the Iraqi Embassy in Germany would be seized and did not condone the action.

Mr. Chalabi said the Iraqis who seized the embassy did not belong to the Iraqi National Congress. After the congress learned of the action, it had a representative call the embassy and urge the Iraqis there to avoid violence.

"We told them to cool it, don't become violent," Mr. Chalabi said in an interview in Washington. Mr. Chalabi said that the congress offered to play a mediating role but that the offer was not taken up and the German police moved in.

Mr. Chalabi said the five Iraqis who seized the embassy left Iraq less than a year ago. They ranged in age from the middle 30's to 43, he said, and had three demands. One was that the German government take down the flag of Iraq that flies over the embassy and present it to the opposition. The second was that the German government expel all Iraqi intelligence agents. The third was that the government provide protection for Iraqis who live in Germany.

"They were determined to get a hearing," he said. "They had been talking to the German government for a long time without getting any support for their position."

The White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, condemned the seizure, saying: "Actions like this takeover are unacceptable. They undermine legitimate efforts by Iraqis both inside and outside Iraq to bring regime change to Iraq."

In a statement faxed from a Hamburg exchange to Reuters, the group in Berlin called its act "this first step against the terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein and his killers." The seizure, the statement said, "is intended to make the German people, its organizations and its political powers understand that our people have the desire to be free and will act on it."

The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has opposed German participation in any war against Iraq, even with a mandate from the United Nations, and said Germany would not contribute financially or militarily to such a war.

His comments, in the middle of a hard-fought election campaign, were considered too strong by Washington. The American ambassador here, Daniel R. Coats, visited the chancellery last week to quietly express American unhappiness with the tone of Mr. Schröder's comments, which seemed to indicate that American officials were not consulting allies.



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