BAGHDAD, May 27 (UPI) -- Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the former vice president under Saddam Hussein, said the insurgency would continue in Iraq until U.S. forces were driven out.
The statements from Douri appeared Monday in the little-known Egyptian tabloid Al-Mawqif Al-Arabi, which Iranian Press TV said Tuesday has close ties to the former regime.
The former vice president said Baath Party loyalists dispatched scores of female suicide bombers into Iraq and vowed to continue backing the insurgency unless U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq and the Baathists re-emerged as "the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people."
In the interview he called on his followers to attack enemy positions and cut supply lines "without harming the innocents," though it was unclear if his message targeted U.S. or Iraqi forces, Press TV said.
Douri, who has a $10 million bounty on his head and is the king of clubs on the U.S. list of most wanted former officials, said that despite the thousands of loyalists killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the "resistance" would continue "until the total liberation of Iraq."
At least 20 or so Sunni militant groups in Iraq said they joined a coalition led by Douri in October, but there has been little word from either since then.
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in 2004 credited Douri with overseeing the insurgency in Iraq. There have been various reports the former vice president is dead as he reportedly suffers from leukemia.
