The commander of US ground forces in Iraq said on Wednesday that US troops launched an all-out assault on the hideout of Saddam Hussein’s sons after they spurned an offer to surrender.
Giving details of Tuesday’s operation in the northern city of Mosul, General Ricardo Sanchez said troops of the army’s 101st Airborne Division, Special Forces and Air Force units took part in the six-hour firefight.
Sanchez said US forces surrounded the villa where Uday and Qusay Hussein were hiding and used loud hailers to demand they give themselves up. But the troops ”were met with return fire”, the general told a press briefing in Baghdad.
The US forces entered the fortified building three times before they eventually found the bodies of the brothers and two others on the second floor.
Four US soldiers were injured in the first assault on the villa, after which the forces withdrew and called in tanks and helicopter reinforcements.
The troops made a second try to storm the villa, but were again forced to retreat when they came under fire from the occupants barricaded in the second floor.
The commander at the scene then called in rocket fire, which left the building a smouldering ruin. The troops entered a third time, and met with fire ”from one person who was later killed”, General Sanchez said.
The troops found four bodies on the second floor, among them Uday and Qusay, who were later identified with the help of dental records and by senior members of the former Iraqi regime.
Identification of the two remaining victims was still pending, the general said. – Sapa-dpa