Mystery surrounds Berlin hostage-takers

German police are questioning five men arrested after they seized the Iraqi embassy in Berlin claiming to represent a group opposed to President Saddam Hussein.

There is intense speculation about the aims of their group, the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany, and about whom it represents. Mainstream opposition organisations have described it as "obscure".

The five - some of them armed - stormed the embassy on Tuesday afternoon, taking four hostages including the acting ambassador and his appointed successor.

Elite German officers retook the embassy building in a lightning raid five hours later, without firing a shot.

The head of the commando operation, Martin Textor, said police had made several attempts to contact the hostage-takers and ascertain their demands before taking action.

"Details about their motives, what pushed them to it, what the background was - whether it was political or perhaps only commercial - are speculative," he said.

In a statement faxed to a news agency at the start of their occupation, the dissidents wrote: "In the name of the Iraqi people and their legitimate leadership, the Iraqi opposition, we declare that the liberation of Iraqi soil begins today".

But the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the country's main opposition group in exile, condemned the occupation by what it said was an obscure organisation not representing the opposition.

An opposition source in London told Reuters news agency the group included former Iraqi army members and independent Kurds.

The source said the aim of the hostage taking was to protest at German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to US-led plans for military intervention aimed at regime change in Iraq.

Another man described as a spokesman for the group told agency the five hostage-takers were asylum seekers who had come to Germany in the past year.

Experts have said the group probably has a following of only a few dozen supporters within Germany and exerts little or no influence in Iraqi opposition circles.

Nonetheless, the BBC's regional analyst, Pam O'Toole, says the unilateral action by one small group is likely to bolster allegations from critics that the Iraqi opposition is as divided as ever, despite attempts on a recent trip to the US to show a united front.

The US has said that despite President George W Bush's commitment to toppling Saddam Hussein, it considered the hostage taking "unacceptable, even against a regime that is as evil as Iraq's".

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the dissidents "undermine legitimate efforts by Iraqis both inside and outside Iraq to bring regime change".

A statement from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry accused the US of standing behind the action.

"Armed terrorists from the mercenaries of the American and Zionist intelligence services attacked our embassy in Berlin," it said.

Police were called to the embassy on Tuesday afternoon after neighbours reported hearing shots fired.

After receiving diplomatic permission from Baghdad to enter the premises, officers from the SEK special commando entered the building and quickly overwhelmed the five men.

The whole operation was over in around two minutes and the officers did not need to fire their weapons.

"It was very fast. You see these kind of things on television and this was even faster," said Mr Textor of the police action.

"I'm very pleased it was conducted in a prudent fashion and not in a Rambo manner".

Hostage Takers Applied for Asylum

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The Associated Press, Wed 21 Aug 2002

BERLIN (AP) — Five men who barricaded themselves inside the Iraqi Embassy and took Baghdad's acting ambassador and other diplomats hostage are believed to be Iraqis and had all applied in the past for asylum in Germany, authorities said Wednesday.

A previously unknown Iraqi dissident group seeking the ouster of Saddam Hussein said the hostage takers were its members. German commandos stormed the building Tuesday evening, ending the five-hour standoff, after trying 20 times in vain to contact the hostage takers by telephone.

Iraq's acting ambassador and his designated successor, who had been tied up, were freed uninjured.

The suspects were to be brought before a judge later Wednesday to determine whether they should remain in custody.

Berlin judicial spokeswoman Ariane Faust said the five men were aged between 32 and 43 and were believed to be Iraqis. Four of them had registered as asylum seekers in Berlin in March of this year, and the fifth had done so last year.

All five had been living at a hostel for asylum seekers in Brandenburg state, which surrounds Berlin, she said.

So far they have refused to answer police questions, said another official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police moved after Iraqi officials gave German authorities permission to enter the embassy grounds.

Clambering over an iron fence, the commandos stormed the building and knocked a loaded Czech-made pistol out of the hands of one of the hostage takers, freeing the two diplomats.

German investigators were still trying to establish what the connection was between the five suspects and the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany, which issued a statement claiming responsibility for the takeover.

``Details about their motives, what pushed them to it, what the background was — whether it was political or perhaps only commercial — are speculative,'' Martin Textor, the head of the German commando operation, told reporters Tuesday night.

Investigators said they had no information about the group other than it appeared to be newly formed. Iraqi officials and dissident groups abroad said they had never heard of it.

Armed with a pistol, two tear gas guns, a hatchet and a stun gun, the men forced their way into the three-story embassy at 2:25 p.m. Tuesday.

They took four hostages, barricading themselves inside. Two embassy employees were released almost immediately — a woman who suffered eye irritation when the captors used tear gas and a man who went into shock.

Textor said the acting ambassador and his successor were among the hostages. While police did not give names, an official list of diplomats identifies Iraq's acting ambassador as Shamil Mohammed.

During the standoff, nearly 300 police officers swarmed over the leafy neighborhood that is home to numerous diplomatic missions, sealing off several blocks of streets.

Neighbors said that, normally, German police patrol the street outside the Iraqi mission once or twice a day, but that they saw no sign of guards posted outside the mission. The embassy opened just a month ago in the Zehlendorf neighborhood after transferring from Bonn.

A statement by the group, written in nearly flawless German, said that ``we are taking over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin and thereby take the first step toward the liberation of our beloved fatherland.''

``Our action is peaceful and limited in time,'' it added. ``Our path is the liberation of Baghdad.''

The group said it expected Germans ``to understand our cause'' because of Germany's postwar democratic revival after the Nazi era.

The embassy seizure came at a time when Germany is expressing opposition to U.S.-led military action to remove Saddam, who is accused of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction — a position that has stoked a rare open spat between Washington and one of its chief European allies.

Speaking to reporters in Texas, a White House spokesman said that while President Bush wants to see Saddam toppled, the United States does not condone hostage-taking in pursuit of that goal.

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