"The path of jihad and of resistance is the better way ... to assure the departure of occupation forces," said the voice

DUBAI, November 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A voice purported to be that of Saddam Hussein said the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq have reached "a dead end" and urged the resistance to fight the U.S.-installed authorities, in an audiotape broadcast Sunday, November 16, on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television.

"The evil ones are at a dead end in Iraq," the voice said, adding that the U.S.-led occupation forces "imagined it would be a picnic" when they launched the invasion on March 20 that led to Saddam's fall, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Those who are installed by foreign armies ... are in the same situation (as the occupiers), and we have to fight them even before (we fight) the foreign armies," said the voice, referring to the U.S.-appointed interim Governing Council.

"That is a legitimate duty, patriotic and humanitarian," he added, in an address to the Iraqi people on the occasion of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

"The path of jihad and of resistance is the better way ... to assure the departure of occupation forces," said the voice, affirming that "the invaders have no other choice than to leave our country, the land of Arabs and Islam."

Otherwise, the message added, "they will continue their experience during other months, other times, of more destruction and looting.

"But they will be defeated, and with defeat, more and more Americans will die," the voice warned.

'Black House'

Referring to the occupation's failure to find their alleged weapons of mass destruction, the reason which Washington and London used as a pretext to justify war, the voice denounced "the untruthful Americans and British."

"The liars of the Black (White) House admitted these lies, as they admitted that agents they brought with them when their tanks and armies entered Iraq ... have no influence on the valiant Iraqi people."

He added: "The voices of the world are raised today to say, as we said before the war, that Iraq does not have the alleged weapons."

'Chemical Composition'

Referring to the mounting Iraqi resistance against the occupation forces, he said, "the only solution is the end of foreign influence in Iraq and that Iraq return to how it was" before the U.S.-led invasion.

"Iraq has its own chemical composition that only the Iraqis can understand," the voice continued.

"Iraq, the land of jihad and resistance, (can) swallow the thousands of soldiers without them even realizing," he said.

On September 17, an audiotape attributed to Saddam called on U.S. President George W. Bush to pull his forces out of Iraq and urged the Iraqi people to step up resistance to U.S. and British troops occupying their country.

Sunday's was the ninth audiotape attributed to Saddam by Arab satellite TV stations since his ouster on April 9.

U.S. intelligence has deemed previous tapes to be probably authentic at a time when the former strongman continues to elude U.S. forces carrying out raids across Iraq in an attempt to capture him.