Condition of Hussein’s Son Is Unknown

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iraqi sources gave conflicting reports Friday about the condition of President Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, one day after assailants attacked him as he drove through a Baghdad suburb.

Iraqi opposition sources in Amman, Jordan, said heavy machine guns and grenades were used in Thursday’s attack on Uday Hussein, 32, and that as many as 120 people, most of them passersby, were arrested at the scene.

An Iran-based Iraqi opposition group, the Islamic Dawa Party, said in a statement faxed to a news agency in Beirut on Friday that it was behind the assassination attempt.

Uday Hussein, sometimes described as Saddam Hussein’s heir apparent, reportedly told officials with the Iraqi Soccer Federation, which he heads, that he was not seriously hurt. An Iraqi TV station that he owns said he was in a hospital in his father’s presidential compound in the Iraqi capital.

Iraqi sources outside the country in Cairo, however, told reporters that Uday Hussein was injured so critically that he might be transferred for treatment to neighboring Jordan, which has the Arab world’s most advanced medical facilities.

None of these reports could be independently confirmed.