An Australian newspaper has reported that its staff in Baghdad had obtained an audiotape allegedly recorded this week by deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The Sydney Morning Herald said two men gave the tape to its staff. In the 15-minute recording, allegedly made by Saddam on Monday, a "tired-sounding" voice calls on Iraq's people to unite in an underground war against the US-led occupying forces, the newspaper reported. "We have to go back to the secret style of struggle that we began our life with ... your main task is to kick the enemy out from our country," the voice is quoted as saying. "Through this secret means, I am talking to you from inside Great Iraq and I say to you, the main task for you, Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni, Muslim and Christian and the whole Iraqi people of all religions, your main task is to kick the enemy out from our country," it said. The speaker made several references to the occupation of the country since Saddam's regime was ousted last month and accused US forces of carrying out looting of antiquities at the Iraqi National Museum. The Sydney Morning Herald said it had played the tape to 13 Iraqis from all walks of life, including a former acquaintance of Saddam and people from his home region of Tikrit, and "the overwhelming opinion was that the voice and rhetoric were very similar, or identical, to those of Saddam". "Certainly it's him," a judge from a Baghdad criminal court, who asked not to be named, told the newspaper. "I am 100 per cent certain. I deal with physical evidence all the time," he said. Talib al Shar'aa, a law professor at Baghdad University, said the tape "sounded very realistically like Saddam Hussein". "This is the first time he has admitted the reality of the occupation," he told the Herald. "He focuses on the word occupation, and he admits to being in hiding and working by secret means. And it sounds to me like this speech is new because he mentioned the Iraqi people celebrating his birthday on April 28, 2003," he said. The newspaper said two men speaking with the accent of the Tikrit region approached its reporters' car -- clearly marked "press" -- on Monday outside the Palestine Hotel which houses much of the international media in Baghdad. One man asked for directions to the offices of the al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya television stations, but when told they were inside the hotel he balked at entering the building which was guarded by US troops. He then handed the tape to the Australians, saying it had been recorded that morning by Saddam. Saddam and his close aides were the target of two US bombing and missile attacks during the US-led invasion of Iraq which began on March 20. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Saddam Hussein Photo by Iraqi Tv/Reuters