'Saddam' calls for resistance

The Sydney Morning Herald said the 15-minute tape was given to their reporters in Baghdad on Monday by two men who were unable to deliver it to the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera.

On the tape - said to have been recorded on the same day - a "tired-sounding" voice urges Iraqis to wage an underground war against the coalition, the newspaper says.

"We have to go back to secret style of struggle that we began our life with," the speaker says, claiming to be speaking "from inside great Iraq".

"The main task for you, Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni, Muslim and Christian and the whole Iraqi people of all religions... is to kick the enemy out from our country."

The newspaper says the tape is being handed to US authorities for further analysis.

But it says the recording appears to be recent , as the speaker makes a reference to Saddam's birthday on 28 April, and accuses US forces of looting antiquities from the Iraqi National Museum.

The newspapers reporter said it had played the recording to more than a dozen Iraqis "from various walks of life", and that all but two believed it was Saddam's voice.

"The overwhelming opinion was that the voice and rhetoric were very similar, or identical, to those of Saddam," the newspaper said.

No evidence

There has been no conclusive evidence so far to determine whether Saddam Hussein is dead or alive.

The Americans twice bombed buildings in Baghdad where they thought the Iraqi leader was hiding - on the first day of the war, and then again on 7 April when they targeted a restaurant in the suburb of Mansour.

But residents of an area in northern Baghdad - around the Adhamiya mosque - said Saddam Hussein appeared there two days after the Mansour raid.

It is the view of senior British officials - and many Middle East analysts - that Saddam Hussein did survive the attack and is probably still inside Iraq.

Previous Saddam 'appearances'

30 April: A London-based Arabic newspaper publishes a letter bearing what it believed was Saddam signature.

18 April: Abu Dhabi television broadcasts footage and a speech by a man they claimed was the former Iraqi leader, said to have been recorded on 9 April.



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