Iraq aide threatens suicide strikes

A senior Iraqi official is threatening that Iraq will carry out suicide attacks against Americans in this country and the region if the US carries through with its threats to strike Iraq.

"Martyrs, perpetrators of suicide attacks, are our new weapons, and they will not only take action in Iraq," Taha Yassin Ramadan, a vice president who is considered among the nation's top two officials after President Saddam Hussein, is quoted as saying in the new issue of the German magazine Der Spiegel. "The whole region will be set ablaze. This part of the world will become a sea of resistance and danger for Americans."

Saddam also repeated warnings that American soldiers would be killed before being able to enter Baghdad, the capital.

"The enemy will not enter Baghdad's suburbs because he will die," he told top military commanders on Friday night, according to the state press. "Even if they send a million soldiers, our boys will kill them."

The Iraqis' comments came amid heightened talk of war both here and in Washington, with US President Bush George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warning that time was running out for Iraq to give up the illegal weapons they say it has.

For the last two weeks, Saddam has appeared regularly on state television in a display of the nation's preparations for war. On Friday night, he discussed with military officials the way he expected American soldiers to carry out any invasion: by landing in the desert and moving to take the capital.

Echoing recent comments from other top officials, he repeated that any bombing campaign could be devastating, though he said it would not defeat Iraq.

"When the enemy lands, he ensures air protection," he said. "And when you attack to destroy him, he will destroy you with his air forces."

"The force which counters an enemy landing must be close to it," he advised the commanders. "For that, we have to spread troops across the desert at the risk of exposing them to enemy fire, and our training must be carried out in line with this theory. Otherwise it will not be realistic."