BAGHDAD, July 23: The killing of two more US soldiers on Wednesday and a purported new message from Saddam Hussein dampened the joyous mood after the death of Uday and Qusay in a blistering four-hour battle with US troops.

US top ground commander Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez defended the operation amid questions whether the lives of Saddam’s sons could have been spared in the showdown in Mosul on Tuesday.

“We did make an attempt with an interpreter and with a bullhorn to try to get a surrender from the personnel in the house and what we got back was return fire. And therefore we had to execute in the fashion we did,” he said in an elaborate presentation, replete with maps and pictures of the besieged home.

Four soldiers were wounded in a first attempt to enter the house before the military brought in heavy firepower, turning the battle into a lopsided fight between the US juggernaut and Qusay, his 14-year-old son Mustafa, his brother Uday, as well as a bodyguard Abdul Samad, who were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles.

As they complete the autopsies in the coming days, Gen Sanchez said more information would be provided to the Iraqi people.

He said the pair were identified by former members of the Baath party regime, and Uday was matched by X-rays of his body in comparison with a 1996 attempt on his life, along with dental records for the two brothers.

Gen Sanchez added as a triumphant aside that the US military had captured the former commander of Iraq’s Special Republican Guard, Barzan Abd al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid al-Tikriti, the 11th most wanted official on a US list.

“Now, more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back,” US President George W. Bush said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s key ally in the war to oust Saddam, said Uday and Qusay’s deaths represented “a great day for the new Iraq,” while the fledgling Iraqi Governing Council said it was “God’s justice.”

But on the streets of Baghdad, the latest deaths of US soldiers and the reappearance of Saddam sobered the mood after Tuesday night, when Iraqis were seen firing gunshots into the air in celebration.

One soldier was killed on Wednesday morning in a bomb blast west of Baghdad near the flashpoint town of Ramadi, a haven of Saddam supporters, just two hours after another soldier was killed in a similar blast near Mosul, the US military said.

In another reminder that celebration was premature, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television channel broadcast a taped message purportedly recorded by Saddam.

“The war (against the coalition) is not over. The war is not finished,” warned the voice on the tape.—AFP