Attack kills 3 US soldiers in Iraq

MOSUL - Three United States soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division operating in northern Iraq were killed in a rifle and grenade attack last night, a day after the slayings of Saddam Hussein's sons.

Soldiers from the 101st, based in Mosul, killed Uday, 39, and Qusay Hussein, 36, in a raid on a house in the city on Wednesday. At least one shadowy group has vowed to avenge their deaths.

"Three 101st Airborne Division soldiers were killed in a small arms and RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] attack," the spokesman at US headquarters in Baghdad said.

That brings the total of soldiers killed by the enemy to 44 since Washington declared an end to major combat on May 1.

It was the second fatal attack on the 101st since the massive Mosul raid, which was backed by rocket-firing helicopters, killed Uday and Qusay after they barricaded themselves into a house.

On Wednesday, a soldier from the division was killed and seven were wounded when two vehicles hit a mine on the city's outskirts.

Earlier, US forces captured a senior Republican Guard official and the US promised to publish photographs of the dead Husseins.

The head of the Special Republican Guard, Barzan Abd al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid al-Tikriti, was seized at an undisclosed location in Iraq, said Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the American military commander. Eighteen of the 55 Iraqis most wanted by Washington now remain at large.

Also yesterday, a new tape aired by an Arab satellite television broadcaster and purportedly made by Saddam three days earlier called on fighters loyal to him to persist in their uprising against the US-led occupation force.

But US President George W. Bush said Iraqis could gain comfort from the deaths of Uday and Qusay.

"Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis," he said at the White House.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that the photos would be released to prove their deaths "soon".

On the streets of Baghdad, where celebratory gunfire broke out after news of the sons' deaths, residents said they wished American forces had captured Saddam's sons alive - ready to stand trial, face their victims and suffer punishment for the horrors they inflicted on Iraq.

"We are happy for this, but we hoped that they would have been captured instead of killed so that they could have been tried by the Iraqi people," said Jassim Jabar, a 22-year-old tailor. "I hope Saddam will face the same fate soon."

Sanchez, the American commander, said dental records, x-rays and four former senior figures from the Saddam regime - including former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and presidential secretary Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti - helped to establish certainty that the two sons were dead, he said.

Dental records were a 100 per cent match for Qusay and a 90 per cent match for Uday, Sanchez said. Damage to Uday's teeth prevented a perfect match.

Two other Iraqis were killed on Wednesday. One, a teenager, is thought to have been Qusay's son Mustapha. The other man was believed to have been a bodyguard.

Sanchez defended the decision to kill the suspects hiding in the house, saying they had repeatedly fired on troops trying to enter the fortified second floor of the palatial villa.

"[The commander] made the right decision based on the conditions on the ground."

Armed only with AK-47 assault rifles, the four Iraqis wounded four American soldiers and held out for hours against a devastating array of US firepower, including rocket-firing helicopters and anti-tank missiles.

Sanchez said Uday, Qusay and the bodyguard were eventually killed when the house was blasted with 10 anti-tank missiles. The teenager made a last stand but was shot as troops raced up the stairs after finally managing to storm the villa.

Sanchez gave no details about who tipped off the Americans to Saddam's sons' whereabouts.

The house belonged to Mohammed Nawaf al-Zaidan, a tribal leader in the region, who said he was a cousin of Saddam.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq