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Captured soldiers
soon on TV - Iraq
23/03/2003 13:04 - (SA)
Baghdad - Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan claimed on Sunday that Iraq held American prisoners of war and that it would show them on television soon.
"Within hours you will watch American prisoners on TV screens and you will see films of burnt tanks," he said.
Ramadan made the claim during a news conference in Baghdad. The claim could not immediately be substantiated, and US central command said it was checking the report.
Ramadan also denied claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have been injured in the attacks that began four days ago.
"I think for the past four days you have the president on television. You have seen the president more than once," he said.
Military spokesperson Colonel Hazim al-Rawi said that Iraq had shot down five coalition planes and two helicopters, and had stopped the advance of invading troops near Nasiriyah and Najaf in the south of the country.
He told a press conference that four planes were downed over Baghdad and one over the southern city of Basra.
One helicopter was shot down over the main northern city of Mosul and the second over As-Samawa in the south, he said, without providing any further details.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf also said Iraqi forces had halted the advance of coalition forces into the city of Nasiriyah and the Najaf region.
Did not enter city
The US military announced on Saturday that Nasiriyah, around 180 kilometres northeast of the Kuwaiti border, had fallen but admitted they had chosen not to enter the city to avoid house-to-house fighting.
The city is located on the Euphrates river northwest of the port of Basra, which allied forces are also attempting to take in the early stages of their drive north to Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein.
"They (US troops) are in a quagmire from where they will leave only as corpses," Sahhaf said.
Iraqi television reported that an official of the ruling Baath party was killed on Saturday night in a clash with US soldiers in the southern Najaf region, some 200 kilometres south of Baghdad.
The minister also said that "seven million armed fighters of the Baath party are deployed through all the territory of Iraq to fight the hordes of invaders", together with six million volunteers.
- AFP
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