MOSUL, July 23: The man whose tipoff led to the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons was on Wednesday under American protection, apparently with a 30-million-dollar bounty under his belt, the US military said.

Colonel Joe Anderson said the informant was under protection but declined to confirm local suspicions that he was tribal chief Nawaf Mohammed al-Zaidan, owner of the mansion where Uday and Qusay Hussein made their last desperate stand.

“He is in US custody. We’re protecting him,” the colonel said.

Anderson added that he thought the informant had received the 15-million-dollar bounties placed on the heads of each of Saddam’s two sons by the US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer.

A neighbour of Zaidan said he witnessed Tuesday’s operation, which started with US soldiers knocking on the door and ended several hours later with missiles crashing into the building, killing the four defenders inside.

But first, the American troops brought out the wealthy sheikh together with his son, Kefar Mahmud said. Then they used loudspeakers to call for those left inside to surrender.

That was when the occupants opened fire, sparking the battle.

Two platoons of the elite assault force along with special forces were involved in the battle.

“They asked the people to get out of the house. The response was bullets,” said Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne’s second brigade combat team.

And then the fireworks started, pitting the American forces against Qusay, the heir apparent to Saddam, and Uday, the ousted regime’s hot-headed wildchild.

The soldiers fired about a dozen heat-seaking TOW missiles, Anderson said.

Six hours after the knocking on the door, four charred bodies were removed and two of them positively identified as Uday and Qusay, before being transferred to Baghdad airport, the army said. Four US soldiers were wounded.

The other two were said to have been Qusay’s teenage son Mustafa, and a bodyguard named Abdul Samad.

A female relative of Zaidan, who asked not to be named, and another neighbour, Ahmed Habel, both said they believed Zaidan tipped off the Americans.

Zaidan was arrested without his hands bound and “seemed to be well treated by the soldiers”, said Habel, adding that Zaidan’s tribe was linked to Saddam Hussein’s family, explaining why Uday and Qusay had sought refuge with him.

But the New York Times said Nawaf had been prosecuted by Saddam’s regime under a law making it illegal to claim kinship with the president’s family.

Another neighbour, retired army general Ali Jajawi, quoted in the same paper, said that Zaidan and son Shahlan were seen in American vehicles before the raid.

People asked him what had happened and he told them Uday and Qusay were inside the house. He had gone to bring breakfast for them, he said, and the Americans arrested him.

On Wednesday, a crowd of onlookers were gathered outside Zaidan’s enormous two-storey home, behind barbed wire erected by a ring of around 50 US soldiers.

The window frames had been destroyed by missile fire and the inside of the building burnt out. Lieutenant Colonel Mike Rourke, an engineer in the division, said about a dozen nearby homes had been damaged.

Opinion among the onlookers was divided.

Kurdish residents of this mixed city welcomed the killings of Saddam’s brutal sons. But an Arab resident said, “We don’t like the occupation, even if they (the Americans) have got rid of these people.” —AFP