WASHINGTON/MOSUL, 24 July 2003 — US President George W. Bush yesterday hailed the death of Saddam Hussein’s two sons as the clearest sign yet that “the former regime is gone and will not be coming back.”

Bush called Uday and Qusay Hussein, who were both killed on Tuesday during a firefight with US forces, “two of the regime’s chief henchmen ... responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis.”

Still, in an appearance with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer, the US occupation governor for Iraq, Bush said that “a few remaining holdouts” loyal to Saddam’s government are complicating efforts to stabilize Iraq and advance freedom.

“These killers are the enemies of Iraq’s people. They operate mainly in a few areas of the country. And wherever they operate, they’re being hunted and they will be defeated,” Bush said in brief remarks. He did not respond to questions shouted by reporters.

US forces captured a senior Republican Guard official yestersday. But the bloody insurgency showed no signs of letting up, as attacks claimed the lives of two more American soldiers.

The head of the Special Republican Guard, Barzan Abd Al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid Al-Tikriti, was seized at an undisclosed location in Iraq, US Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a news conference in Baghdad. The capture lowers the number of the 55 most-wanted still at large to 18 after the death of Saddam’s sons.

Also yesterday, a new tape aired by an Arab satellite TV broadcaster and purportedly made by Saddam on Sunday called on fighters loyal to him to persist in their uprising against the US-led occupation force.

On the streets of Baghdad, where celebratory gunfire broke out Tuesday, residents said they wished American forces had captured Saddam’s sons alive — ready to stand trial, face their victims and suffer punishment for the horrors they inflicted on Iraq.

“We are happy for this, but we hoped that they would have been captured instead of killed so that they could have been tried by the Iraqi people,” said Jassim Jabar, a 22-year-old tailor. “I hope Saddam will face the same fate soon.”

Others didn’t believe the Americans had finally run the brothers to ground.

Sanchez said that the coalition would provide proof “in due time” to the Iraqi people that Uday, 39, and Qusay, 37, second only to their father in power in the ousted Baath regime, were killed in the US raid on a palatial villa in the northern city of Mosul.

Dental records, X-rays and four former senior figures from the Saddam regime — including presidential secretary Abid Hamid Mahmud Al-Tikriti — helped establish certainty that the two sons were dead.

He said dental records were a 100 percent match for Qusay and a 90 percent match for Uday. Injuries to Uday’s teeth made it impossible to achieve a perfect match.

Sanchez, asked about releasing the pictures of the bodies, said: “We have not ruled out any options at this point.”

Two other Iraqis, including a teenager, were killed. The teen was thought to have been Qusay’s son, Mustafa. The other man was believed to have been a bodyguard, US officials said. But Sanchez said experts have yet to identify the bodies.

Sanchez defended the decision to kill the suspects hiding in the house, saying they had repeatedly fired on troops trying to enter the fortified second floor of the palatial villa.

“That was the decision made by the commander on the ground and that was right decision,” Sanchez said. “He made the right decision based on the conditions on the ground.”

Sanchez said four Americans wounded in the raid were not seriously hurt. Three have returned to duty, and the fourth will do so soon, he said. He said he believed the $30 million bounty for Uday and Qusay would be paid, but gave no details about who tipped the Americans to the hide-out.

But the euphoria was shortlived after a US soldier was killed and six wounded in an attack yesterday on a convoy near Mosul, the military reported. In a separate incident yesterday, a convoy was attacked in Ramadi, 100 kilometers west of the capital, killing one soldier and wounding two more.

The two deaths brought to 155 the number of American soldiers killed in action since the war began March 20, surpassing by eight the death toll in the 1991 Gulf War.

An American commander said the person who tipped US forces to the presence of the brothers Monday night was in protective custody in Iraq.

When asked why, Col. Joe Anderson, a brigade commander of 101st Airborne Division, said: “People know who owns the house, so that’s a factor.”

Anderson refused to say if the tipster and the owner of the villa were the same person. The house belonged to Nawaf Al-Zaidan Muhammad, a Saddam cousin and tribal leader in the region. Neighbors declared their certainty that the villa-owner and the tipster were one and the same.

— With input from Agencies