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8:05 a.m., July 22, 2003

MOSUL, Iraq – U.S. troops stormed a house in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Tuesday and said they killed four high-ranking allies of Saddam Hussein.

Some 200 soldiers blasted the villa with machine guns and rockets during a four-hour battle before storming the building and bringing out four bodies, U.S. officers said.

They declined to identify them or comment on local rumors Saddam's sons might have been present.

Saddam's two sons may have been found in the shoot-out, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

"There is a pretty decent chance" that Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were there during the shoot-out, one official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. forces have been conducting an intensive hunt for the fugitive former dictator himself, spurred on by guerrilla attacks on their ranks they blame on his die-hard supporters.

Another U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday, the sixth in five days. And the International Committee of the Red Cross said one of its staff was killed in a shooting south of Baghdad.

They were attacked as a trio of U.S. appointees attended a Security Council meeting in New York, the first Baghdad delegates to go to the United Nations since Saddam fell in April.

"Individuals of very high interest to the coalition forces were hiding out in the building," Lieutenant-Colonel William Bishop of the 101st Airborne Division told Reuters in Mosul.

"This morning we went to the building and surrounded it."

Major Trey Cate, spokesman for the division, said four "high-value targets" were found dead after the battle. A fifth Iraqi also died in the fighting and at least five were hurt.

Local residents said there had been rumors the troops were hunting Saddam's sons. The younger, Qusay, was one of his father's most trusted lieutenants. Uday was famed and feared throughout Iraq for his cruelty and playboy lifestyle.

Witnesses said U.S. soldiers were fired at by people inside the house as they approached.