Saddam's assassination attempt made after monitoring a phone call

Fox News said yesterday that the raid carried out against on Monday at a restaurant at al-Mansour quarters in Baghdad with the aim of assassinating the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, came from precise information by a listening operation to a telephone network, via satellites and the collaboration of intelligent hirelings in the field.

Previous successive US air strikes had resulted in obstructing the telephone network in Baghdad which pushed the Iraqis to use the United Arab Emirates based "Thuraya" satellite telephone system. This company owns a telecommunication system that can geographically specify the location of the telephone call.

Fox News quoted US sources as saying that the telephone call was depicted through "Thuraya" for a voice similar to that of Saddam Hussein and another voice for his son Qusai from several telephone calls that talked about a meeting including between 20- 50 officials of the Iraqi intelligence and the Baath Party which was due on Monday evening.

The sources said that when the US intelligence department made sure through hirelings in the field of the identity of the persons and after several reports confirmed that the meeting was held and Saddam was taking part in it, the US air force was notified and by its turn sent planes that destroyed the site within 45 minutes.