U.S. Kills 'High-Value' Iraqis in Siege
Tue July 22, 2003 10:23 AM ET
By Miral Fahmy
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops stormed a house in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday and said they killed four high-ranking allies of Saddam Hussein.
Some 200 soldiers blasted the villa with machineguns and rockets during a four-hour battle before storming in to find four bodies, U.S. officers said.
They declined to identify them or comment on local rumors Saddam's sons might have been present.
The U.S. forces have been conducting an intensive hunt for the fugitive former dictator himself, spurred on by guerrilla attacks they blame on his die-hard supporters. Another American soldier was killed on Tuesday, the sixth in just five days.
He died as a trio of U.S. appointees prepared to address the Security Council in New York, the first Baghdad delegates to return to the United Nations since Saddam fell in April.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3133794