Iraqi Embassy Siege Defused in Germany

BERLIN — Police special forces stormed the Iraqi Embassy here late Tuesday, ending a five-hour siege by opponents of President Saddam Hussein’s regime who had seized four hostages and had declared their assault “the first step toward the liberation of our beloved fatherland.”

Five members of a little-known group calling itself the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany slipped by German guards outside the elegant mission to dramatize their determination to topple the Hussein regime, according to a faxed statement sent to news agencies. Their hostages included Iraq’s senior diplomat here.

But the assailants gave up without a shot fired as soon as police moved in. The operation lasted less than five minutes.

“At 7:40 p.m., the building was entered and five people were arrested. Two [hostages] were injured but only lightly,” police spokeswoman Christine Rother said.

The incident brought an international conflict into a usually quiet western Berlin neighborhood, spotlighting the growing tensions here over President Bush’s threat to attack Iraq.

U.S. and German officials as well as the numerous Kurdish and Iraqi exile groups in Germany have been mired in debate for weeks about the level of Berlin’s commitment to Bush’s declared war against terrorism. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder this month warned Washington that his nation was not prepared to get involved in any “military adventure” against Iraq, contending that such action would need United Nations backing and could undermine the search for peace in the Middle East.

The hostage-takers made clear that they were aiming to convince Germans of the need to get rid of Hussein.

“This first step against the terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein and his killers, which is taking place with a peaceful purpose, is intended to make the German people, organizations and political powers understand that our people have a desire to be free and will act on it,” the group warned in the statement faxed from Hamburg.

The group’s decision to use force to highlight the plight of Hussein’s opponents prompted fears of other pressure tactics from the exile community here. It also drew rebuke, even from other critics of the Baghdad regime.

In Crawford, Texas, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that the Bush administration condemned the hostage-taking and that it was unfamiliar with the group that staged the assault.

“Actions like this takeover are unacceptable,” Fleischer said. “They undermine legitimate efforts by Iraqis both inside and outside Iraq to bring regime change to Iraq.”

Asked why the group’s members were not viewed as freedom fighters, Fleischer said the United States adheres to the belief that illegal intrusions into other nations’ embassies are unacceptable, “even against a regime that is as evil as Iraq’s.”

But some saw the hand of Washington in the siege, even though police suggested that it was the work of distraught amateurs.

“Certainly they have been pushed by somebody else, some government perhaps,” Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Douri, told reporters in New York. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry in Baghdad blamed the attack on “armed terrorists of the American and Zionist intelligence mercenaries.”

Outside the police barricades erected two blocks from the embassy, Iraqi exiles gathered with journalists and passersby to watch the muted drama unfold.

“Some people are even saying it could be a CIA-inspired act to get Germany into a war against Hussein,” said Amir Abbas, an Iraqi who said he has lived in Germany since 1979. “I know Schroeder is now saying he is against a war, but that is only until the elections are over.”

Schroeder’s challengers in the Sept. 22 elections have made similar claims--that his opposition to backing U.S. action against Iraq is electioneering, as Germans are largely opposed to further military deployments abroad.

Hundreds of police cordoned off the embassy block in the Zehlendorf district while sharpshooters and masked special forces took positions outside the villa, which opened July 17 when the Iraqi government moved its mission from the former German capital, Bonn.

Mediators sought to make contact with the captors through the wife of Iraqi Charge d’Affaires Shamil Mohammed, the top diplomat seized. But officials were still unsure of the captors’ demands when word came that police had been authorized by the Iraqi government to enter embassy territory and bring the incident to an end.

The assailants had released two of the hostages, a man and a woman, to the care of emergency medical workers before police got permission to move on the building. One hostage had suffered a minor respiratory ailment induced by an aerosol irritant the assailants used to gain entry to the compound, and the other had a panic attack, said police spokesman Joerg Nittmann.

There were unconfirmed reports that two shots were fired during the siege.

The Arab television network Al Jazeera, monitored in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, broadcast what it said was a telephone interview with one of the captors.

“We are not occupying the embassy. We are liberating this piece of Iraqi soil. We’re doing this to highlight the desire of the Iraqi people for liberty and freedom,” the male voice stated, adding that the occupation was calm and nonviolent.

Asked how many supporters had entered the embassy, he replied: “We are 22 million.”

In London, a spokesman for the opposition Iraqi National Congress said the action was conducted by a fringe group and in violation of the INC’s objective of forcing a change in leadership in Baghdad without causing violence in third countries.

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Times staff writers Jeffrey Fleishman in Berlin and James Gerstenzang in Crawford contributed to this report.