BAGHDAD, April 2: Iraqi state television Wednesday night showed President Saddam Hussein chairing a meeting which paid tribute to the “heroic resistance” of Iraqi fighters against US and British invasion forces.

Saddam, in military uniform, appeared smiling and relaxed in the television footage, the first of him broadcast since Sunday.

The television said the meeting was attended by Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Military Industrialization Minister Abdul Tawwab al-Mullah Howeish, Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh, Interior Minister Mahmud Diab al-Ahmed and Oil Minister Amer Rashid.

“The meeting paid tribute to the heroic resistance by our people’s valiant armed forces and sons as they fight and drive back the cowardly American-British aggression,” the television said.

Earlier Wednesday state television, without airing images, said Saddam had chaired another meeting of advisers including his two sons: Qusay, head of the elite Republican Guard, and Uday, who runs the Fedayeen paramilitary corps.—AFP