The commandos clambered over the embassy's iron fence at dusk, after police tried 20 times to reach the hostage-takers by telephone, police operations commander Martin Textor said. Five people were detained.

Police knocked a loaded Czech-made pistol out of the hands of one of the hostage-takers, freeing the two senior diplomats, both of whom were bound, Textor said.

Police said at least one hostage was injured when the group took over the building at 2:25 p.m. In all, four hostages were taken - two embassy employees who were released shortly after the siege started, and the charge d'affaires and another envoy, who were freed by German police.

Textor said the hostage-takers fired two shots inside the building during the standoff, corroborating a description by a neighbor, Manfred Charnow, who lives near the embassy and said he heard two volleys.

"The suspects had no chance to put up resistance," Berlin Interior Minister Ehrhart Koerting told a news conference. "This obviously is a group that is entirely newly founded. It was unknown to authorities here."

A group calling itself the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany issued a statement claiming responsibility. It said in a statement it had no intention of violence.

"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," said the statement received by two news agencies in Germany. "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 comes as Germany expresses opposition to any U.S.-led military action to remove Saddam, who is accused of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. The German position has stoked a rare open spat between Washington and one of its chief European allies.

(China Daily August 21, 2002)