Iraq threatens unconventional attack tonight

Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf threatened “something that is non traditional, unconventional” and “non military” against the allies tonight.

Asked if Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction, Sahhaf told a Baghdad news conference: “No, not at all. But we will conduct a kind of martyrdom operations.”

Pushed to explain what will happen, Sahara said: “I give you an example of what happened in Indo China”

Earlier he had referred to the French army’s defeat at Dien Bien Phu in French Indo China, now Vietnam, in 1954.

In what is seen by many military scholars as one of the great battles of the 20th century – 16,000 French troops were surrounded by communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s army.

After a 57 day siege the French were defeated with at least 2,200 French troops killed and thousands more taken prisoner.

Of the 50,000 or so Vietnamese who besieged the garrison, there were about 23,000 casualties – including an estimated 8,000 killed.

The fall of Dien Bien Phu shocked France and brought an end to French Indochina.