On FOX News CHANNEL:
Dutch Embassy Hit by RPG in Baghdad
Friday, January 30, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Attackers fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the Dutch Embassy in Iraq on Friday, hitting the roof with one and setting it on fire. The blaze was quickly extinguished, and there were no injuries.
Security guards and U.S. soldiers said the projectile detonated on the roof after the embassy had closed for the day. Another missed the building, and two other launchers were found in the garden behind the embassy, guards said.
Guards fired at the attackers' vehicle as they fled, said guard Karim al-Zubaidi.
Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Martine de Haan said there were no injuries.
The blast resounded through Baghdad, and a U.S. quick reaction force from the 1st Armored Division (search) was sent to the scene, the U.S. command said. Earlier reports said the projectile was a rocket, but the military said later it was a rocket-propelled grenade.
(Story continues below)
"We saw the light of the fire on the roof, and the firefighters came to the scene and put out the fire on the roof," said 18-year-old Fadi Ghassan, who lives near the embassy. He said he heard two explosions.
The Netherlands has about 1,100 troops in Iraq.
The Dutch Embassy staff was pulled out of Baghdad before the invasion of Iraq in March, but they returned in August. In October the government again withdrew most of the staff after an attack on the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters and other bombings.
The embassy is now conducting most of its business out of Amman, the capital of neighboring Jordan.
Only five Dutch employees are manning the embassy. Four were in Baghdad Friday, but none was in the building at the time of the attack, the Dutch foreign ministry said.
