Iraqi president Saddam Hussein told the Iraqis today that he will not flee the country and denied rumours of his close family going abroad.

Reuters

news agency reported that Saddam, through a statement read out o­n Iraqi television, said that his own and his relatives' fate remain tied to that of the Iraqi people.

"The rumour that the family of President Saddam Hussein has left Iraq is a repeat of a lie that was previously voiced by the Pentagon. The immediate family of leader Saddam Hussein is part and parcel of the great and larger Iraqi family," Reuters quoted the presidential statement which was read out earlier today.

"President Saddam Hussein has linked his fate and the fate of his immediate family to the honourable values of the Iraqi people and the fate of Saddam Hussein's immediate family will be similar to the fate of the bigger family of Iraq."

Reuters

said that Saddam appeared to be responding to speculation, aired in some foreign media, that the elder of his two wives, Sajida, and his daughters had fled Iraq.

Saddam has also appeared o­n Iraqi state television several times since the war began to douse speculation that he had been killed or fled the country.

Border crosses tightened

Meanwhile the Associated Press reported that Iraq's neighbour Iran is preventing its citizens from crossing the border into Iraq to fight for Saddam, saying that would violate its neutral status.

"I tried to cross the border, but military forces blocked my way," the AP quoted Mohammad Kanani, 23, a fruit vendor from the border Ahvaz province, as saying. "I'm ready to sacrifice my blood to fight American and British occupiers. Courageous Saddam is standing up to them."

Iranian military officials o­n the border said they were under orders not to let anybody through.

"We have prevented and will prevent anybody seeking to cross the border without authorization," a military officer was reported as saying.

Over the weekend, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had warned Iran that it faces American action if any Iranian-sponsored forces crossed into Iraq. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Iran was determined not to take sides in the war.

Kuwait under missile attack

Meanwhile, American broadcaster ABCnew reported that an Iraqi missile was shot down by a Patriot missile battery before it reached Kuwait earlier today.

"Our radars detected a missile launched by Iraq.... It was shot down in southern Iraq before it entered our airspace," the army's Lt Col Awad Metawtah was quoted as saying.

The report added that, according to Metawtah, a Patriot missile hit the Iraqi missile at 9:05 am (2.05 pm Malaysian time). Sirens had sounded in Kuwait City, warning of what appeared to be at least the 17th missile that Iraq has fired at Kuwait since coalition troops invaded Iraq from Kuwait o­n March 20.

Before dawn Tuesday, an explosion resounded across the Kuwaiti capital, but Metawtah said it apparently resulted from a false alarm.