GUNMEN WEARING MILITARY UNIFORMS and suicide bomb belts stormed a local government headquarters in northern Iraq today in an attempt to take hostages that killed at least 21 people, officials said.

Three lawmakers who were inside the Salahuddin provincial council building in Tikrit when the gunmen overran the compound are missing, said provincial governor Ahmed Abdullah. He said the lawmakers were not answering their mobile phones and could not immediately be located — indicating they may be held hostage.

He described a fierce shoot-out between at least eight gunmen, who have overtaken the council headquarters’ second floor, and Iraqi security forces who surrounded the building. He said the attackers were hurling grenades at Iraqi forces.

Salahuddin province media adviser Mohammed al-Asi said 21 have been killed in the siege, which was still ongoing more than three hours after it began. Sixty-five people have been wounded, he said.

Among the dead was journalist Sabah al-Bazi, a correspondent for Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel and a freelancer for CNN, according to the two news outlets.

Hostages

A senior intelligence official in Baghdad the gunmen were holding some hostages inside the building but did not know how many.

“The goal of the attackers was apparently to take hostages,” Salahuddin government spokesman Ali al-Saleh said. At least some officials and government employees escaped before they the gunmen could capture them, he said.

Authorities said the attackers blew up a car outside the council headquarters to create a diversion before launching their raid. Wearing military uniforms — including one with a high rank — the gunmen identified themselves as Iraqi soldiers at a security checkpoint outside the government compound but opened fire on guards when they were told they needed to be searched.

The provincial council meets at the headquarters every Tuesday, but a spokesman for the governor, Ali Abdul Rihman, said local lawmakers called off their discussion early because there was little on their agenda. As a result, he said, most of the lawmakers had already left the headquarters when the assault began.

“The gunmen were armed with grenades, and began their raid by firing at random at a reception room,” Rihman said. “Then they opened fire inside.”

Police immediately imposed a curfew to prevent all road and pedestrian traffic in Tikrit as security forces moved into the building. The senior intelligence official said forces began an operation to free any hostages about two hours after the start of the siege.

He likened the attack to a horrifying hostage raid last fall on a Catholic church in Baghdad that left 68 dead and stunned the nation.

Tikrit, which is Saddam Hussein’s hometown, is mostly populated by Sunni Muslims and is was a hotbed for insurgents and anti-American extremists at the height of the Iraq war.

- AP