Jubilant expatriates storm Iraq embassy

Tony Blair said he was "delighted" at the scenes of celebration in Baghdad yesterday while a few miles across London jubilant expatriates invaded Iraq's former embassy.

The Prime Minister, who joined Downing Street staff to watch television images of the liberation of the city, was pleased to see the "scales of fear falling from the eyes of the people of Iraqi", his official spokesman said.

Although Mr Blair was still cautious about the continuing threat to British troops, there was little disguising the private relief and celebration in No 10.

"We are all, as you would expect, watching these images, along with the rest of the country, and are delighted at what we are seeing in the reaction of people on the ground," the spokesman said.

"It shows what the ordinary people thought of Saddam and just how much of a burden his rule has placed on them. A substantial part of the country we can say with certainty is free of violence."

London-based Iraqis burst into the empty former embassy in South Kensington yesterday afternoon, ripping up discarded photographs of President Saddam in an outpouring of relief at his demise. Police arrested 24 people.

The invaders found little in the embassy, which was closed more than a decade ago, except photographs of the former leader which were torn. The men are being held on suspicion of criminal damage. But several thousand Iraqi exiles continued to demonstrate across the road from the building as police cordoned it off and stood guard.

"This embassy used to be a nest of spies," said Farouk Ridhaa, 64, a dentist who fled Iraq in 1979. "We used to be afraid to come here before and now we are here to say it is again the embassy of the Iraqi people." Sadraddin Khoshnaw, 35, a teacher who left five years ago, said: "I never felt this was my embassy. It was the regime that put Iraq under pressure. They took people there and told them if they showed opposition their family would be tortured back in Iraq."