Dissidents 'injure' Saddam's son in Baghdad shooting
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Your support makes all the difference.Members of the Iraqi opposition said yesterday that one of their gunmen had wounded a son and presumed heir of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
The London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC) said a resistance group had tried to assassinate President Saddam's younger son, Qusay, while he was in a motorcade in one of Baghdad's more up-market districts on 1 August. It said he was shot in the arm.
"This brave operation was done by one of our resistance groups," the INC said. "This operation represents a significant break in [the] regime's security apparatus."
There was no independent confirmation of the attack, and no comment from Baghdad.
The opposition group said resistance members in an Oldsmobile car had broken into the motorcade and a gunman opened fire. The vehicle escaped but was later destroyed at a checkpoint by government troops using a grenade launcher. The INC said that President Saddam was personally supervising the investigation into the incident.
Qusay, 36, derives his power from running the elite Republican Guard as well as internal security and intelligence, but has fewer public roles than his flamboyant older brother, Uday, who runs several newspapers, as well as TV and radio stations.
The thuggish Uday was left barely able to walk when he was injured from the waist down in an assassination attempt in December 1996.
But while Uday, who had a reputation for womanising and driving flashy sports cars until the 1996 attack, is often in the media spotlight and holds meetings with visiting dignitaries, his younger brother avoids public appearances.
In the past year, there has been speculation that Qusay was being groomed to take over the Iraqi presidency after officials known to be close to him were promoted to government positions. Qusay has been "elected" to a leading position in the ruling Baath party.
An INC spokesman said that Qusay was "an obvious assassination target" because "he is the second man in command in Iraq, a war criminal who cleansed prisons and put down revolts brutally".
INC, an umbrella organisation grouping a number of opposition groups and activists, is working with America to try to change the leadership in Iraq, possibly through a military strike. Iraqi opposition leaders met senior American officials in Washington at the weekend.
George Bush, as part of his plans for "regime change" in Iraq, signed an order earlier this year authorising the CIA to use "all available tools" to overthrow the Iraqi leader.
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