Fugitive Saddam-Era Iraq VP Shown in Online Video
An online video shows Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam Hussein's vice president and the highest-ranking member of his regime still on the run, in what appears to be his first video message since 2003.
The authenticity and date of the clip posted on YouTube on Saturday could not be verified.
It is the first message in years alleged to be from Duri, 70, who was the king of clubs in a U.S. decks of cards showing the most-wanted members of Saddam's regime.
The Baath party, the ruling party in Saddam's Iraq, said Duri had died in 2005, but audio messages attributed to him were broadcast in 2006, 2008 and 2010.
The hour-long clip was posted online on the 65th anniversary of the 1947 founding of the Baath party, which came to power in Syria in 1963 and in Iraq in 1968, in both instances following coups.
At the beginning of the video, a man in a military uniform introduces Duri and calls him the "high commander of jihad (holy war) and liberation ... and the general secretary of the Baath party."
Duri, dressed in a drab green military uniform and black beret, reads remarks from sheets of paper, his hands shaking, and sometimes stumbles over the words.
"Our Baath (party), on its 65th anniversary, is in a major historic war," he said. "I call on this ... occasion for all the progressive resistance forces and all the national Islamic resistance forces to work for the liberation" of Iraq.
He alleged that "the political process today is ... for the benefit of Iran, which is carrying the most dangerous project for the Persians, with the intention of taking over Iraq and then destroying the nation."
Duri also spoke about Syria, criticizing the reaction of Arab states against President Bashar Assad's regime, which has been carrying out a bloody crackdown on an uprising against his rule.
"We are with the Syrian people and with its legitimate rights, and with its peaceful uprising," he said.
But addressing Arab states, he said: "What is wrong with? You did everything against the Syrian regime, and you reached the point of calling for armies to invade Syria and erase its people, as happened in Iraq and Libya."
Source: Agence France Presse
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