Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 17 November 2003 — A TV network broadcast a purported audio tape by fugitive dictator Saddam Hussein yesterday exhorting Iraqis to wage holy war against occupying forces and warning of more deaths for US-led troops.

In the northern city of Mosul, US soldiers retrieved wreckage and bodies after two Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed under fire on Saturday, killing 17 soldiers in the bloodiest single incident for US forces since they invaded Iraq. Another five US soldiers were wounded in Mosul yesterday when a roadside bomb was detonated as their convoy passed.

Facing a mounting casualty toll in Iraq, Washington has moved to speed the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis in the hope of pacifying resentment toward the occupation, and the US Army has adopted new tougher targets to strike back at guerrillas.

The US military fired a satellite-guided missile yesterday for the first time since major combat was declared over on May 1, targeting an island in a river in northern Iraq where US officers said guerrillas had set up a training camp.

The purported Saddam tape, broadcast by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, urged Iraqis to drive out occupying troops. “Fighting them...is a legitimate, patriotic and humanitarian duty and the occupiers have no choice but to leave our country...as cursed losers,” it said.

It was the first time in two months that a tape purportedly recorded by Saddam has been broadcast. The ousted Iraqi leader is still missing with a $25 million price on his head.

US President George W. Bush dismissed the tape. “I haven’t seen the specifics,” he said in Washington. “I suspect it is the same old stuff. You know, it’s propaganda, and we’re not leaving until the job is done.”

The US Army said it was still investigating what caused the Black Hawks to collide. Soldiers in Mosul and witnesses said one of the helicopters was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and then collided with another Black Hawk flying nearby.

One Black Hawk slammed into the roof of a house in Mosul’s Bab Sinjar neighborhood. The second hit a school building. Somehow, neither appeared to have inflicted civilian casualties in the crowded residential area near the city center.

US soldiers across Iraq have stepped up raids this month and have resumed using weapons of war, including 500-pound bombs, mortars and missiles. Yesterday marked the first time in months a satellite-guided missile was used in Iraq.

Several blasts echoed across Baghdad after dark yesterday. Iraqi security officials said they were probably caused by guerrillas firing rockets or mortars but there were no reports of casualties.

Along with the new military tactics, Washington has adopted a changed political strategy which allows sovereignty to be transferred to Iraqis even before a new constitution has been drafted and democratic elections held. The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council announced on Saturday that the occupation would formally cease at the end of June 2004, when a transitional Iraqi government will take over. But asked if Iraqis could expel US forces once authority is turned over to them, Iraq’s US governor Paul Bremer said: “No...there will be a side agreement dealing with our mutual security interests, which we will also negotiate between now and the end of June.”

— Additional input from agencies