Iraqi envoy sees U.S., Israeli role in takeover

BERLIN -- Recounting the five hours he was held hostage by gunmen, Iraq's acting ambassador said Wednesday that he is convinced his captors were either Israeli or American agents whose goal was to raise German support for a U.S. attack on Baghdad.

Given the way the five men handily disabled embassy security systems and rewired a gate to enter the grounds, Shamil Mohammed said they could not have been ordinary Iraqi dissidents as they claimed.

"It was a good and well planned action and these people were not politically motivated, they are mercenaries, they are gangsters," Mohammed said. "I think you can ask the people in Washington or London or Tel Aviv about it -- it was either CIA or Mossad."

A previously unknown Iraqi dissident group calling itself the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany said its members were behind the embassy seizure Tuesday and called for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. German commandos stormed the building, detaining the five men and freeing the hostages.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the administration had no contacts with the group and called such attempts to overthrow Hussein "unacceptable."

SCHROEDER MAINTAINS STAND: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday reiterated his refusal to back a U.S. military strike against Iraq.

Though Schroeder has been chastised by the United States for calling the emerging plans for such an assault a military "adventure," the German leader insisted that his relationship with the White House remains intact.

"We have a solid foundation in our relations on which we can discuss what should or shouldn't happen in Iraq," Schroeder said. "Friendship doesn't mean that you agree all the time on every single issue."

Iraq: Abu Nidal took life to duck charges

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Abu Nidal, once the world's most feared terrorist, ended his life with a gunshot to the head rather than face an Iraqi court for allegedly communicating with a foreign Arab state, the head of Iraqi intelligence said Wednesday.

Tahir Jalil Haboush told reporters in the Iraqi capital that a search of Abu Nidal's Baghdad apartment turned up automatic weapons and false passports, but he offered few other details about the Palestinian's death.

Israeli steps up smallpox vaccinations

JERUSALEM -- Israel decided Wednesday to give smallpox vaccines to more than 15,000 security and rescue officials, expanding an inoculation program to protect its people in case of an Iraqi attack with chemical or biological weapons.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said he did not know when the inoculations would begin. He called the program's expansion a contingency, "not something that has to do with any immediate threat."

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