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A letter allegedly written by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein called for jihad (holy war) against occupying troops, as US supervisor Paul Bremer ruled out an early withdrawal of the coalition forces.
The handwritten letter, broadcast by Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel Wednesday, also expressed appreciation for the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a reputable Shiite leader in the holy city of Najaf who demands the US authority transfer power to Iraqi people.
The letter seemed to be a transcription of a dialogue between Saddam and his interviewer, in which a number of questions raised by the interviewer about the future constitution of Iraq and the US-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council were answered.
Several messages purported to be from Saddam have been broadcast by the Arab-language channel since his regime was toppled by the US-led coalition forces in April.
The former Sunni president's fate remains a mystery although tens of thousands of US troops have reportedly mounted numerous raids, hunting for the strongman in the war-torn country.
In a latest attempt to root out Saddam's henchmen, US troops arrested four members of the former regime in a raid near Tikrit, 160 km north of Baghdad and the hometown to the former leader.
The military said Wednesday that three of the four detained were a Republican Guard general, a Republic Guard division commander and a paymaster of Saddam's Fedayeen militia.
Meanwhile, three US soldiers were confirmed killed in the last 24 hours.
US officials blamed the constant attacks on loyalists to the Saddam regime and foreign terrorist fighters, who have killed 59 American soldiers since US President George W. Bush announced the major combat in the country over on May 1.
In an interview with al-Jazeera on Wednesday, Bremer said the coalition forces will leave Iraq when a sovereign Iraqi government asks them to, but he presumed "it's unlikely to happen soon."
"When there is a sovereign Iraqi government according to the international law and the United Nations Security Council, and the sovereignty that is now exercised by the coalition passes to the Iraqi government, at that point the coalition's job is over," he said.
He immediately conceded that it takes time to form a sovereign government.
"How long does it take them to write and to ratify a new constitution? This certainly can't be done in just a few months," he said, referring to his earlier remarks that there can be no sovereign government without a democratic election stipulated by a constitution.
Bremer also doubted the new sovereign Iraqi government, after it is formed, will ask the coalition to leave the country.
"With an army of 12,000," Iraq can not defend itself against any neighboring threats, said Bremer, adding that Iraq was not on good terms with its neighbors and it would need the help of the coalition forces to maintain peace and security.
Late Tuesday, the US-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council kicked off a long-awaited process by naming a technical committee to study the basic procedures of drafting the new constitution for Iraq.
In a sign of further risking alienating the Iraqi people, the US troops Wednesday encountered a mass protest by thousands of Shiite Muslims in a place south of Baghdad.
Around 3,000 demonstrators gathered in the Sadr city, known as Saddam city before the war, in protest against a US helicopter's attempt to tear down a religious banner.
The patrolling troops fired to disperse the crowd, and an Iraqi child was killed four others and injured.
Shiite Muslims, the largest ethnic group in Iraq which takes 60 percent of the national population, used to be silent after the US-led coalition ousted Saddam, who is from the minority group of Sunni Muslim.
(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2003)
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