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BAGHDAD, April 4: Iraqi television Friday showed President Saddam Hussein being cheered on a street, in the first footage of the Iraqi leader in public aired since the start of the war on March 20.
Mr Saddam appeared in olive green military garb on the main square of the al-Mansour residential neighbourhood of Baghdad, flanked by just a few bodyguards but packing a firearm in a holster.
The footage, which showed a scene in daylight, was broadcast at about 9:20pm (1730 GMT).
Smiling broadly, the Iraqi strongman accepted several kisses of his hand from the jubilant crowd, which chanted “With our blood and our souls, we shall redeem you” and “Bush, Bush, listen well, we all love Saddam Hussein.”
CALL FOR RESISTANCE: President Saddam Hussein called on Baghdad residents on Friday to resist the invading forces of the encroaching US-British troops, Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said on state television.
“When the capital resists, the invaders can no longer advance and have to retreat,” Mr Sahhaf quoted the president as saying in a speech which claimed God was on the side of the Iraqis.
Saddam Hussein vowed Iraqis were determined to defeat the forces which had massed “at the doorstep of our capital,” the speech said.
“Fight day and night, hit them without respite,” said the strongman, whose recent non-appearance on state television has sparked speculation as to his whereabouts. The president, who called on Tuesday for Jihad against the invaders, said “victory was assured in advance,” according to Mr Sahhaf.
“We believe in God and we count on Him for a victory which He has promised to believers, and that is our right.”
Baghdad has dismissed US suggestions that Saddam Hussein is no longer in control of the country he has ruled since 1979, or that he may have been killed in the thousands of US-British airstrikes since March 20.
He has been shown on television chairing meetings of his inner circle, but it is unknown when that footage was recorded. He was last shown on Thursday vowing at a meeting that victory against the advancing US-British forces was certain.
MARTYRDOM: Iraq warned of “martyrdom” and other unconventional attacks later Friday against US troops who it said were “isolated” at the Saddam International Airport on the outskirts of the capital.
“I mean some kind of martyrdom, and there are very very new ways which we are going to carry out,” said Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf, whose country says it has thousands of volunteers ready for suicide attacks.
Sahhaf recalled the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, when French troops were surrounded and forced to surrender by Vietnamese forces, leading to the end of French rule in Indochina.
“Tonight we will carry out something that is not conventional against them, not military. It will be a great example to them,” he told a press conference.
But the minister, whose country has insisted it does not have weapons of mass destruction, ruled out the use of unconventional weapons in reply to a journalist’s question.
“Unless they surrender quickly, I don’t think there’s any chance that they will survive,” he said, referring to the US forces. “We consider it an isolated island ... They are completely surrounded.”
“In a joint effort between Iraqi people, Saddam’s Fedayeen (militia) and tribesmen ... we have the determination to keep them in a small island, another Dien Bien Phu,” he said.
In his military briefing, Sahhaf said Iraq’s elite Republican Guards units had clashed with US forces airlifted to Abu Gharib north of Baghdad, destroying six tanks and three armoured personnel carriers (APCs).
“This force is now isolated from the force airlifted to Saddam International Airport,” he said.
In another clash at Falluja to the west of Baghdad, “our forces launched an attack on one column of the US and British enemy. They stopped and started to flee,” said the minister.
Sahhaf said a combined force of Iraqi tribesmen, ruling Baath Party fighters and Saddam’s Fedayeen inflicted “heavy losses” on US troops between Karbala and the capital.
Further south, nine US tanks and an APC were destroyed south of Al-Kut, according to the minister.—AFP
