A tape recording purportedly of Saddam Hussein which was broadcast yesterday urged guerrilla fighters in Iraq to continue their resistance to the US-led occupation of the country.
As if to taunt the Americans on their Independence Day, an unidentified caller rang the al-Jazeera television station and played a tape, allegedly from the ousted dictator, which claimed credit for defending Iraq's independence against outsiders.
Saying he was inside Iraq, the voice added: "Brothers and sisters, I relay to you good news: jihad cells and brigades have been formed . . . We have sacrificed the government but we will not sacrifice our principles or surrender." It urged Iraqis to assist the groups resisting "the infidel occupiers".
The tape surfaced hours after US troops killed 11 Iraqis who had attempted to ambush a convoy north of Baghdad. On Thursday Washington put up a $25 million reward for the former Iraqi leader, and a $15 million bounty for information leading to the capture of his two sons, Qusay and Uday. The CIA said yesterday it was reviewing the tape, and it was too early to judge whether it was Saddam. However, an intelligence official conceded that the tape added to the body of evidence that Saddam had survived the war, and the two bombing raids which had been intended to take out the Iraqi leadership.
The last credible sighting of the Iraqi leader was on April 9th when he toured the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad, a stronghold of the regime, even as US forces were at the capital's gates.
The latest broadcast could not have come at a more sensitive time for coalition forces. US troops are coming under an average of 13 guerrilla attacks every day, military commanders say.
In yesterday's most serious clash, US soldiers thwarted an ambush of a convoy on a highway near the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad yesterday.
The clash came only hours after four mortar rounds hit a nearby US base wounding 16 soldiers, two of them seriously, the military said.
Twenty-seven US soldiers have died from guerrilla attacks since President George Bush's May 1st declaration that the military conflict was over. - (Guardian Service)