Saddam Urges Army, People to Fight, Exhaust Invaders

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 06, 2003

Saddam Urges Army, People to Fight, Exhaust Invaders

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein issued a message on Saturday and urged the Iraqi army and people to intensify the fight against US-led coalition troops and "exhaust" them.

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Iraqi President Saddam Hussein issued a message on Saturday and urged the Iraqi army and people to intensify the fight against US-led coalition troops and "exhaust" them.

In a message delivered by Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf on a television program, Saddam told the Iraqi armed forces and ordinary citizens to step up attacks to defeat their enemies.

"The criminals will be humiliated. Your duty is to exhaust them," Saddam said in the message delivered on the 17th day of the war.

"To hurt the enemy more, raise the level of your attacks," Sahaf quoted Saddam as saying.

The message said that while the invaders were concentrating on Baghdad, their attacks elsewhere in Iraq were weakening.

Meanwhile, US forces said they sent troops on Saturday into the heart of Baghdad for a first time while Iraqi officials said Baghdad was okay.

Earlier Saturday, Iraqi Information Minister Sahaf told a daily press conference that Iraqi forces had recaptured Saddam International Airport, which was seized by US troops on Friday and then renamed as Baghdad International Airport.

On Friday, Sahaf threatened to take "non-conventional" action against US-led forces.

"We will commit a non-conventional act on them, not necessarily military," Sahaf said in a press briefing.

He said Iraqis would conduct a kind of "martyrdom operation," aword Iraqi officials often used in describing suicide attacks.

Sahaf said US forces were on an "isolated island" at the airport.

"It is difficult for the US forces that are surrounded in Saddam airport to come out alive," he said.

In another development, an American general said on Saturday itwas irrelevant to the US war plan whether or not a man shown by Iraqi television touring Baghdad was President Saddam Hussein or not.

Major General Victor Renuart told reporters at the US-led war headquarters in Qatar that he did not know if it was really Saddam who was shown in Friday's footage.

"Whether or not that was Saddam is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is it really does not matter. The objective is to end the regime in Iraq and we'll continue with that," he said, making clear the United States believed that objective could be achieved whether or not Saddam was alive.

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