Scene of shootout - villa, security, media circus, onlookers

(23 Jul 2003)

1. Exterior villa
2. US Soldier
3. Media satellite vans outside
4. Window on villa damaged by gunfire
5. Side of villa
6. Bullet holes, pan up to broken pillars
7. Pan of people gathered on the other side of the street
8. Men behind barbed wire
9. Damaged side of house
10. People (mostly children) chanting behind barbed wire, pan to house
11. Soldiers walk across street to move barbed wire
12. Smoke coming out of window
13. Villa
14. Protesters (mostly children) chanting in support of Saddam Hussein
15. Protester holding up banknote with Saddam Hussein's image on it
16. Protest
17. House with vehicles outside
18. Pan from house to Protesters across the road
19. Protesters punching the air with their fists before US troops

STORYLINE:

Crowds of Iraqis gathered outside the mansion where Saddam Hussein's two eldest sons were killed by by American soldiers on Tuesday.

Some of those were shouting in delight, others cursing in anger.

The huge stone mansion, with mighty support columns, was riddled by bullet scars and gaping holes caused by incoming fire when troops from the US Army's 101st airborne division tracked down the two early on Tuesday morning and raided the building.

Odai and Qusai Hussein were regarded as two of the cruelest men in Saddam's regime.

The owner of the house - Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhamad - is a tribal sheik and a cousin of Saddam.

Some Iraqis - most of them children - chanted Saddam's name and shouted at U.S. soldiers who milled about as smoke still wafted from the blown-out windows.

They held aloft bank notes bearing Saddam's image, and punched the air with their fists.

When U.S. troops entered the home's ground floor, they almost immediately came under fire from the four people holed up in the second floor, a senior U.S. defence official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The home's second floor had been hardened against attack with bulletproof glass, the official said.

The U.S. soldiers then called in an attack helicopter, which fired several missiles into the building, the official said.

Four American soldiers were wounded in the assault.

Mosul was a center of support for Saddam and the Iraqi army during his rule.

The dominant city in northern Iraq, it has a large Kurdish population, and many Arabs in the area - many of whom were moved in by Saddam's regime at the expense of the indigenous Kurds - were apparently loyal to Saddam partly out of fear Kurds could gain power and turn on them.

After Saddam's fall, there were rumors in the region that the Iraqi leader and his sons were being sheltered by Arab tribes in the countryside between the city and the Syrian border.

The bodies of Odai and Qusai - long feared by most Iraqis for their roles in the military and intelligence arms of Saddam's brutal dictatorship - were taken to Baghdad's international airport Wednesday to be flown out of the
country, American officials said.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...