Iraqi Embassy Hostage Crisis

Date: August 20, 2002 • Location: Berlin, Germany

A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. The Iraqi Ba'ath Party, which initially espoused a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, quickly diverged into a right-wing ideology known as Saddamism.