BBC - Saturday May 12 10:01 AM ET

More Iraqis Start Training to Help Palestinians

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A second group of Iraqi volunteers began military training on Saturday to enable them to fight alongside Palestinians in their uprising against Israel, the Iraqi News Agency INA reported.

INA said a first group of several thousand fighters had finished a two-month stint of military training to prepare them to join Palestinians fighting Israeli troops.

President Saddam Hussein, in an open letter to the Iraqi people on February 17, ordered the formation of 21 military divisions. A day earlier U.S. and British warplanes had raided targets near Baghdad.

``The second group of volunteers in Baghdad and provinces went on Saturday to training camps in response to a pan-Arab duty to liberate Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem) from dirty Zionists,'' the agency said.

According to official figures nearly seven million Iraqis have volunteered to fight with the Palestinians against Israel.

Iraq has always taken a hard line toward Israel. It fired Scud missiles at the Jewish state during the 1991 Gulf War. It also opposes peace agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians and those signed with other neighboring countries.

Its offer to provide military support for the Palestinian uprising is widely seen as symbolic, since the Israeli army firmly controls access routes into the areas affected by the conflict.

Earlier this week Saddam offered Palestinians living in territories under the Palestinian Authority free education in Iraqi universities.

The Iraqi leader has promised aid of $276 million to help the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in their uprising and a further 700 million euros $644 million to buy food and medicine for the Palestinians.

More than 500 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed since the Palestinian revolt began in September.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001