Defiant Saddam urges Iraqis to target US troops

SADDAM HUSSEIN testified yesterday for the first time at his trial, calling on Iraqis to stop a bloody wave of sectarian violence and instead fight American troops, prompting the chief judge to close the courtroom, saying he was making political speeches.

Even as the judge repeatedly yelled at him to stop, Saddam read from a prepared text, insisting he was still Iraq's president.

"Let the (Iraqi) people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency.

"In my eyes, you are the resistance to the American invasion." Finally chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman ordered the session to continue in secret, telling journalists to leave the chamber. The video and audio broadcast of the trial was cut off.

After nearly two hours, reporters were called back into the court. Saddam was sitting alone in the defendants' pen in front of the judge.

The former Iraqi leader then refused to answer questions from the chief prosecutor, demanding to see a copy of his testimony given to investigators before the trial began. The prosecution agreed and said they would question Saddam in the next session.

Judge Abdel-Rahman then adjourned the trial until April 5.

Elsewhere, 11 people most of them women and children were killed when US forces flattened a house during a raid north of Baghdad early yesterday, police and relatives said. Elsewhere, insurgent attacks killed at least four people.

The US acknowledged the raid and said it captured one insurgent, with only four people killed a man, two women and a child.

Authorities in the Shi'ite holy city of Karabala, meanwhile, imposed a six-day driving ban starting today in a bid to protect pilgrims from a wave of sectarian killing. The US is dispatching 700 soldiers to Iraq from Kuwait for extra security because of pilgrimages connected to the holiday of Ashura, ending March 20.