In rare reaction, Iraq denies opposition claim of assassination attempt

CAIRO [MENL] -- An Iraqi deputy prime minister appeared healthy on television on Thursday and denied opposition claims that he had been wounded in an assassination attempt this week.

"You are seeing me in front of you," Mohammed Hamza al-Zubeidi said in a television interview on Qatar's Al Jazeera television. "No assassination attempt has taken place.''

Zubeidi walked somewhat stiffly but without difficulty onto the set.

An Iraqi opposition group reported that it had shot and wounded al-Zubeidi while he was traveling on a highway outside Baghdad. The 58-year-old is regarded as an aide of President Saddam Hussein and serves on the Revolutionary Command Council, the regime's top decision-making panel.

Zubeidi is also the military governor of a region covering the holy cities of Babylon, Karbala, Najaf, Qadissiya and Methane.

In a rare response, the Baghdad regime immediately responded to the assertion by Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq that Zubeidi was injured. Odad al-Tai, director of Iraq's information agency, said Zubeidi will "appear live on an Arab television channel.

Another leading aide of Saddam arrived in Baghdad on Thursday. Izzat Ibrahim, deputy chairman of Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, left Vienna, where he had received medical treatment, after human rights activists urged Austrian authorities to arrest the Iraqi official on war crimes charges.

Ibrahim arrived in Amman four hours later and was met by Iraqi Embassy officials and a unit of a special Jordanian elite force. From there, he traveled overnight to Baghad.