Al-Watan: Ruling out of Saddam Hussein's family to Syria

The Saudi daily al-Watan has ruled out press reports which talked about the possibility of Saddam Hussein family and relatives resorting to Syria.

The paper noted in its yesterday issue, quoting well-informed sources in Damascus, the possibility of campaigning and rumoring such news through media sources close to Israel, with the aim to get Syria involved in the war taking place in the region, in a way to support statements of the US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld on transporting military equipment from Syria to Iraq.

The paper explained that the development of the course of fighting does not indicate the need for the Iraqi leadership to escape, because the intensified stress in the current military operations on the Iraqi territories is on the American and British forces rather than the Iraqi forces.