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23-7-2003 Scotsman Uday and Qusay die in gun battle following tip-off By Gethin Chamberlain THE tip-off on Monday evening seemed as promising as anything the US troops had received so far. A group of Saddam Hussein loyalists were hiding out in a villa belonging to a cousin of the deposed dictator in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul. If the informant was right, the group included Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay. The town was already believed to be the exit route for some of Saddam's family members trying to get out of Iraq and on to Syria. After days of fruitless searching for the deposed Iraqi leader and his family, harried by guerrilla attacks at every turn, it was the breakthrough the US troops had been praying for. Two hundred members of the 101st Airborne Division descended on the house with no other thought on their minds than to make sure that the inhabitants did not escape. The men had other ideas. As the US troops began to surround the house, their targets barricaded themselves and opened fire. The US troops fired back, but those inside were mounting a fierce resistance and the soldiers could not force their way in. Instead, they concentrated everything at their disposal on the building. For six hours it was raked with machinegun fire and smashed apart with heavier weapons before Kiowa gunships were eventually called in to add the power of their missiles to the attack. By the time the firing stopped, the stone-built structure was charred and smouldering, its columns smashed and twisted, its facade riddled with holes. Rooms gaped open, helicopters circled overhead. As the troops picked their way through the rubble, they began to find the bodies. Four were brought out, the body of a teenager and an older man, and then the two they had been looking for. Shattered by the fighting, the bodies were not easy to identify, but those who had seen them said they thought they might have got their men. If they were right, the bodies dragged from the house in Mosul were those of Uday and Qusay, the two most powerful men in Iraq after their father, men with a dollars 15 million bounty on each of their heads. For days, US forces had been combing the region for signs of Saddam and his sons, hoping that their capture might demoralise the resurgent Iraqi resistance and stem the daily attacks which have seen the US body count mounting inexorably. One soldier said the operation was launched after US forces received intelligence, possibly from a local resident, suggesting members of the regime were sheltering in the house. "We received direct fire from the building multiple times and used escalating force," the soldier said. "We could not breach into the building. We had to use bigger caliber weapons to render the building safe." Lieutenant-Colonel William Bishop of the 101st Airborne Division said they surrounded the house in response to a tip-off. "Individuals of very high interest to the coalition forces were hiding out in the building," he said. Mosul residents said the soldiers were looking for Uday and Qusay. The imposing, concrete villa belonged to a businessman, a cousin of Saddam who was a key tribal leader in the region, neighbours said. There had been much speculation locally that the sons were hiding in the area. As the dust settled, soldiers removed a four-wheel-drive vehicle from the side of the house and counted the bodies. Major Trey Cate said five Iraqis were killed in the battle, including four "high-value individuals", and at least five wounded. Inevitably, there were other casualties. Some Iraqi civilians in Mosul appeared to have been caught in the crossfire and several were taken to a hospital. The US soldiers, too, were said to have sustained casualties. At least one soldier was taken to hospital, where he was in a stable condition. But after so many months of false dawns, officials were initially reluctant to claim success before they were certain of the outcome. One US official in Iraq said investigators were "awaiting positive DNA testing" to confirm the identities of the bodies, while another US official would only say that the bodies were not in the best condition, but bore "a strong resemblance" to Saddam's sons. In Washington, the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld briefed President George Bush about the raid in an Oval Office meeting yesterday morning, but the White House spokesman Scott McClellan tried to play it safe: "I am aware of the reports," he said. "I am not in a position to confirm anything." But privately confidence was growing that they had got their men. That confidence finally found a voice in Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who last night confirmed the brothers had been killed in a fierce gun battle in northern Iraq. "We're certain that Uday and Qusay were killed," he said. "We've used multiple sources to identify the individuals." They knew that the men were there, he said, because the US military had been given a "walk-in" tip that Qusay and Uday were in the villa. "They died in a fierce gun battle," Lt-Gen Sanchez said. The initial reluctance of the US administration to confirm the identity of the dead men reflects the previous disappointments that have taught them to be wary of jumping to conclusions. Since the very first hours of the war, the US has been playing cat and mouse with Saddam and his sons. The initial war plan was changed at the last moment when intelligence reports suggested that Saddam had been located at the Dora Farm compound in Baghdad. Tomahawk cruise missiles and 2,000lb bunker-busting bombs were launched against the complex, and hopes were high that Saddam had been killed. But although suspicions remained about his subsequent television appearances, those hopes diminished. It was another three weeks before the next breakthrough, this time a tip-off to the CIA that Saddam had been seen in the al-Mansour area of Baghdad meeting Qusay and other regime leaders. Again, the US did not hesitate to attack. Within 45 minutes of the tip-off, a B1-B bomber heading for another target was diverted to drop its four bunker-busters on the target. Again, hopes were high that the Americans had got their men. Again, they appeared to have got away. Saddam was reported to have left Baghdad and headed for a farm owned by relatives in his home town of Tikrit, then moved on to another location north of the capital. He was said to have attempted to cross into Syria with his sons, only to be turned back. Last month the US tried again, this time using a Hellfire missile to attack a convoy near the Syrian border after intercepting a satellite telephone call from the town of Ramadi. The Pentagon said it was waiting for DNA results from a missile strike on the convoy, but it now appears that the convoy had been moving fuel. Jordan's King Abdullah summed up the problems: "It's like Elvis, there's a lot of sightings all over the place," he said. On Monday, the hunt took them to Ishaky, 37 miles north of Baghdad, and the home of Mansur Hamad, a car dealer, after a man claiming to be Saddam's mechanic said that was where the ousted dictator was hiding.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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