Saddam's sons: 'Give us proof'
2003-07-24 09:14
Baghdad - The United States was early on Thursday facing calls from some Iraqis, especially in and around Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, to prove Uday and Qusay Hussein's deaths beyond reasonable doubt.
The killings of the two sons of the ousted Iraqi president - as well as Qusay's teenage son and a family bodyguard - has given a morale-boost to US-led forces operating across Iraq, but the US continues to lose soldiers in daily guerilla attacks here.
Saddam Hussein's latest purported tape message - broadcast by
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television in the last 24 hours - also
continues to taunt US forces hunting the former Iraqi president.
The two mens' deaths - which occurred during a seige of a house in Mosul, northern Iraq, by heavily-armed US troops - were
welcomed in Washington, London and by Iraq's fledgling Governing
Council here which described their deaths as "God's justice".
"God's justice was finally achieved with the deaths of the two
criminals Uday and Qusay," the 25-member council said in a
statement.
The man whose tip-off led to the deaths of Saddam's sons is
under American protection, apparently with a $30m bounty under his belt, the US military said.
Colonel Joe Anderson said the informant was under protection but declined to confirm local suspicions that he was tribal chief Nawaf Mohammed al-Zaidan, owner of the Mosul mansion where Uday and Qusay Hussein made their last desperate stand.
"He is in US custody. We're protecting him," the colonel said.
However, Washington's top Iraqi fugitive, former president
Saddam Hussein, still remains at large at the time of reporting.
Believed to be hiding out somewhere in Iraq, Saddam, has been
missing since the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces on April 9.