Tikrit, July 23: The killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, in a six-hour shootout with US troops has hit the hometown of the fallen Iraqi dictator like an earthquake. Residents of Tikrit, the last major town to fall to US forces in the war that marked an end to his rule, appeared unable to come to grips with the us announcement that the brutal brothers were killed in a ferocious gunbattle yesterday in the northern town of Mosul. "I don't believe it. I saw a lot of stuff on TV, but none of it is true," 23-year-old medical student Akil Edan told a news agency.

"If they want us to believe it, they should show us the bodies." The two were slain in Mosul when US soldiers from the 101st airborne division (air assault) and special forces charged the home of a cousin of Saddam's where the infamous pair were hiding.
But in Tikrit, where the walls are littered with references to Saddam even if his main palace here is now home to the US troops hunting him down, residents found the whole affair hard to swallow.
"This was a terrorist act," railed Nezar Taha, an agricultural engineer, about the high-stakes operation involving hundreds of US troops backed by missile-launching helicopter gunships.
"They should have arrested them and put them on trial like other prisoners of war," the 43-year-old said.

Bureau Report