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— By Paul Hughes

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A pick-up truck carrying extra cans of gasoline smashed into the main gatepost of the British embassy in Iran and burst into flames on Monday, three days after the embassy was besieged by anti-war protesters.

The cause of the incident, in which the driver died, was unclear and being investigated by police, a British diplomat told Reuters.

"It's improbable that this was a suicide attack, but the case needs more investigation," Ali Taala, general director of security and political affairs at Tehran's governor's office, told reporters.

The British diplomat said the embassy had not received any threats or warnings before the incident.

Like most diplomatic missions in Tehran, the British embassy has not taken special security measures or evacuated staff due to the war in Iraq, judging the risk in Iran to be low.

The small pick-up truck hit the compound wall close to the embassy's main gates at around 10:15 p.m. (1845 GMT) and burst into flames.

There were no casualties among embassy staff, many of whom live within the compound in central Tehran.

The vehicle was carrying at least two extra cans of gasoline in the open-air back of the pick-up, the diplomat said.

"It went pretty forcefully into the gatepost, almost at a 90 degree angle," he said. "The whole thing went up in flames as soon as it hit and the driver was burned to a cinder."

Taala, from the governor's office, said the driver was a 35-year-old government employee who was married.

WINDOWS SMASHED BY PROTESTERS

There was only slight damage, mostly scorching, to the embassy compound's wall, the diplomat said.

On Friday, more than a dozen windows on the embassy's main office building were smashed by stone throwers as a crowd of about 300 protesters chanted slogans against the U.S.-led war in neighboring Iraq and called for the British embassy to be closed down.

The British embassy bore the brunt of anger against the war in Iraq because there has been no U.S. diplomatic presence in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution when radical students stormed the U.S. embassy and held 52 hostages for 444 days.

By contrast, diplomatic relations between Tehran and London have steadily improved in recent months. Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made his third visit to Iran in less than a year in October.

Shortly before that Iran agreed to accept London's nomination of Richard Dalton as the new British ambassador, ending a seven-month standoff following Tehran's rejection of London's previous nominee.

Although Iran is officially opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq anti-war sentiment has been fairly muted in the Islamic Republic of 65 million people. Iranians have little sympathy for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

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