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Saddam-tape renews threat
04/07/2003 19:17 - (SA)
Dubai - The spectre of Saddam Hussein loomed large over Iraq on Friday with an ominous warning from the deposed president that he and his aides were still in the country and cells of "holy warriors" were in place to fight coalition forces.
In a tape dated June 14 and broadcast by Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television station, Saddam said "jihad cells made up of Iraqi male and female fighters have been formed on a large scale" throughout Iraq to fight US-led forces occupying the country.
"I call on you to provide a cover for the heroic mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) and not to give the infidel invaders and their collaborators any information about them and their activities," Saddam told the Iraqi people.
The former Iraqi leader, whose whereabouts has been a mystery since the fall of Baghdad on April 9, said he and his aides were still in Iraq.
"I would like to inform everyone that my comrades and brother members of the command are actually in Iraq now," he said. "I miss you very much, my beloved ones, although I am amidst you and within your ranks."
"Hence I salute them (his aides) and salute you (the Iraqi people) and salute the mujahedeen in Baghdad, in the battlefields, and I pay tribute to their steadfastness, jihad and sacrifices," Saddam said.
"I told you before and during the latest battle, in my name and that of the leadership, that we will not let you down and we will not anger God by bowing to the US-Zionist threats."
"We have lived up to our promises to you," he said.
"We've sacrificed power ... but did not renege on our pledge to God and did not stab the people, the nation, in the back by surrendering," Saddam added.
On Thursday, the United States put up $25m for information leading to the arrest of Saddam.
Faced with daily attacks on US troops that it says are directed by former members of Saddam's Ba'ath party regime, the US-led coalition has admitted that failing to account for the ousted leader is hindering reconstruction efforts.
In a message broadcast to the Iraqi people, top civil administrator Paul Bremer also offered a reward of $15m for information leading to the capture of Saddam's two fugitive sons, Uday and Qusay.
Saddam's former military intelligence chief Wafiq al-Samarrai told Al-Jazeera the voice on the tape and the expressions used were indeed those of the deposed Iraqi leader.
He said this confirmed his theory that Saddam was alive and living in Iraq, moving around an area between Baghdad and Samarra, around 125km north of the capital.
The US military has said it considers the main area of Iraqi paramilitary activity in central Iraq to be along a stretch of the Tigris River from Baghdad to Samarra.
Samarra lies on the road from the capital to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, a Sunni Muslim belt where support for his toppled regime was once strongest.
Weapons and military documents believed to belong to the former regime have been seized in recent raids there.
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