BERLIN (AFX) - Several people have been injured in a hostage-taking at the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, police said, as Middle East sources identified those responsible as members of an Iraqi opposition group.
Police said attackers stormed the building in the southwestern district of Zehlendorf, leading to clashes with embassy staff. Witnesses saw numerous police vehicles outside the building. In London, an Iraqi opposition official said a group of refugees called the Democratic Iraqi Opposition in Germany is believed to be behind the hostage-taking.
The group was set up a few months ago among political refugees living in Germany, said an official with the main Iraqi opposition coalition, the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The official, who asked not to be named, said the hostage-taking had nothing to do with mainstream exiled Iraqi groups.
"The policy of the opposition is to fight the dictatorship inside Iraq and not abroad and we are sticking by this policy," the official said from INC headquarters in London. "We have never had recourse to violence outside Iraq." he added///www.forexdirectory.net