German police commandos stormed the Iraqi embassy in Berlin yesterday evening, ending peacefully a five-hour standoff, arresting five men and releasing five hostages.
The men, representing a previously unknown Iraqi dissident group, took over the embassy yesterday afternoon as "the first step in the liberation of our fatherland".
"At 7.40 p.m. the building was entered and five people were arrested. Two \ were injured but only lightly," said Ms Christine Rother, a police spokeswoman.
Baghdad condemned the hostage takers as "mercenaries of the American and Zionist secret services" while Iraqi opposition leaders distanced themselves from the action.
The hostage crisis began at 2.26 p.m. when security men inside the embassy heard stones being thrown against windows of the embassy, a 19th century villa in the south-west suburb of Zehlendorf.
When they went outside to investigate, they were overpowered by a group of men who stormed into the building, taking the staff hostage, including the Iraqi first secretary and acting ambassador, Mr Shamil Mohammed. Iraq's last ambassador left Germany in 1991.
At the same time, a statement rolled from the fax machine in the office of the Reuters news agency in Berlin.
Reuters staff contacted the police, who had already received calls from local residents who heard shots coming from the embassy.
"I heard several shots and then screams of a child, 'Mama Mama'," said one resident who lives across from the villa, which has served as the Iraqi embassy since mid-July.
The group said it chose Berlin for their action because "Germans understand our concerns".
"They also suffered and bled under the dictatorship and tyranny of Hitler's National Socialists," the statement said.
One member of the group told the Deutsche Welle news service by telephone that the group was "acting symbolically on behalf of the 20 million Iraqis who are tortured and killed daily by the regime".
A police spokesman said further explosions were heard shortly after they erected a 50-metre cordon around the embassy, but he could not confirm if they were caused by gunfire or by a gas explosion.
By mid-afternoon over 100 police and soldiers were stationed outside the embassy.
Negotiators tried without success to contact the hostage-takers while officials in the foreign ministry began talks with Baghdad.
Diplomatic conventions prevented police from storming the building without the permission of the Iraqi government.
That permission came in the early evening, and special commandos bearing machine-guns and wearing bullet-proof vests stormed the building.
A police spokesman said they arrested five men and released five hostages.
Two hostages were immediately rushed to hospital, one suffering from pepper spray irritation, the other suffering from shock.
"Several members of the Iraqi opposition group . . . threatened several people in the embassy with weapons," said Mr Jörg Nittmann, the police spokesman at the scene.
According to the opposition Iraqi National Congress, based in London, the hostage-taking was the work of a "splinter group".
"The INC has never resorted to any violence against the regime outside Iraq," said a spokesman.
The German government said the hostage-taking broke international law and was a "violation of the diplomatic immunity of the embassy of the Republic of Iraq".
The US government condemned the takeover as "unacceptable".
"\ undermines legitimate efforts by Iraqis, both inside and outside Iraq, to bring regime change to Iraq," said Mr Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman. "As for the particular group involved, we had no prior knowledge of this group and had no contacts with them," he added.
Iraqi opposition leaders held talks with the US Defence Secretary, Mr Colin Powell, in Washington last week to discuss forming an alternative regime to Saddam Hussein.