WASHINGTON, July 22: Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay Hussein were among four Iraqis killed in a raid in the northern Iraq on Tuesday, the US Central Command confirmed.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally conveyed the news to President George W. Bush, officials said. The White House had earlier said that Mr Bush had been in regular contact with Mr Rumsfeld in this regard.

Abid Hamid Mahmud Al Tikriti, one of Saddam’s senior advisers now in US custody, confirmed their identities, officials in Washington said.

US officials said that although they had learnt about the raid earlier on Tuesday, they had been reluctant to confirm the deaths because of concerns that they could be bodies of look- alikes. Saddam’s sons were known to employ body doubles.

The confirmation came hours after members of the 101st Airborne Division stormed a villa in Mosul. The raid led to a four-hour-long gunbattle. Members of Task Force 20, a secret special forces’ team tasked with hunting down the former Iraqi leader and his sons, also participated in the raid, US officials said.

There was no word about US casualties during the raid although witnesses told news services that US troops had been injured in the attack.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at his regular briefing that President Bush was aware of the reports and the raid but that they had no confirmation yet of the deaths.

Other officials said two of the four bodies now in the custody of US troops in Iraq bore strong physical resemblance to Saddam’s sons. Uday and Qusay were among their father’s closest advisers. Details of the raid were very sketchy in Washington but officials said US troops in Iraq had been tipped about four senior officials of the former Iraqi regime hiding in a house in Mosul.

Reports about the death of Saddams sons came as another US soldier was killed in the latest of a series of ambushes on US troops. The soldier’s death brought to 153 the number of US troops killed in action since the March 20, six more than the number reported killed during the 1991 Gulf War.