Saddam son hurt in attack

By RICHARD SISK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Opponents of dictator Saddam Hussein wounded his youngest son two weeks ago during an ambush at a traffic circle in central Baghdad, Iraqi exile groups said yesterday. Qusai Hussein, 36, was shot in the arm during the Aug. 1 assassination attempt, which occurred when a convoy escorting his limousine was cut off near the presidential palace and raked with gunfire by attackers in an aging Oldsmobile, said Enti Fadh Qanbar, Washington director of the opposition Iraqi National Congress.

The attackers sped off but were intercepted at one of the many police checkpoints in the city, Qanbar said.

Police fired a rocket-propelled grenade that destroyed the car and killed at least two of the attackers, he said.

The official Iraqi media have made no mention of the assassination attempt, and the State Department could not confirm it.

Qusai was named by his father last year to lead the elite Republican Guards and is considered a possible successor.

Internal suspicion

Qanbar said the attack in the Mansur district, home to many top Iraqi officials, "has created tremendous confusion in the regime."

"There must have been a penetration of intelligence to know Qusai's movements," he said.

Saddam's oldest son, Odai, 39, who runs a newspaper and a rock radio station, has been the target of several assassination attempts and was badly wounded in a 1996 attack.

In a separate development, spy satellites detected truck convoys moving equipment out of a suspected biological weapons lab north of Baghdad, a U.S. official said yesterday.

The truck movements at the Taji complex could be an attempt by Saddam to disperse biological weapons in anticipation of a U.S. attack, the official said on condition of anonymity.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

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