Kurds Briefly Hold 8 Hostage at Iraqi Air Office in Paris to Protest Attack
PARIS — Kurds threatening to detonate dynamite took eight people hostage today at an Iraqi Airways office but surrendered after a brief protest against an Iraqi offensive in an area they call their homeland, officials said.
None of the hostages were injured, police said.
Wearing red bandannas and waving their fists, the Kurds walked out of the airline offices on the fashionable Avenue des Champs-Elysees and were led into a police bus.
The incident lasted a little over an hour and snarled rush-hour traffic in the busy intersection around the Arc de Triomphe.
Police said 8 to 10 Kurds drove up to the airline’s offices just after 5 p.m. in two cars. They took eight people hostage and threatened to set off dynamite.
An employee told a French news agency reporter that the Kurds were armed with guns and several sticks of dynamite. But French radio said a suitcase the Kurds had said was filled with weapons turned out to be filled with newspapers.
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