BAGHDAD, 2 September 2003 — Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein yesterday denied any role in last week’s bomb attack in Najaf as the US-appointed Governing Council named a 25-member council of ministers.

“The infidel invaders are accusing, without proof, the followers of Saddam Hussein after the killing of Shiite leader Hakim,” said the purported voice of Saddam on an audiotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera TV. “This is not what Saddam attributes to himself.”

The recording was referring to Friday’s car bomb attack in Najaf which killed more than 100 people, including top Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim.

The United States and members of the Governing Council have blamed the attack on Saddam and his loyalists.

In the newly appointed council of ministers, Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uloum was given responsibility for the rehabilitation of Iraq’s dilapidated and war-damaged oil industry.

The council said in a statement that Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official Hoshyar Zebari had been appointed foreign minister, former exile Nouri Badran interior minister and Kamel Al-Keylani finance minister.

The ministers comprise 13 Shiites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Turkmen and one Christian — the exact sectarian and ethnic mix as that of the Governing Council and reflecting Iraq’s demographic composition.

They will run the day-to-day work of the ministries and report to the council, but there will be no prime minister.

Overall authority remains in the hands of US governor Paul Bremer until an elected government takes office.

Meanwhile, security forces have arrested two men after finding two cars laden with bombs. The men were arrested after cars they were traveling in were found loaded with explosives, said security spokesmen outside the Masjid Al-Kufah, 180 km south of Baghdad. “We found the seats in one car were not well designed and had new covers. This raised our suspicion and we searched the seats and found them filled with bombs,” a policeman said.

“Yesterday we seized the same kind of car filled with bombs,” he said, adding that that car was driven by two men from Yemen.