DUBAI, July 24: Gunmen describing themselves as Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia vowed to step up attacks on US forces and their Iraqi collaborators to avenge the killing of his sons Uday and Qusay, in a video aired on Al-Arabiya television Thursday.

“The occupation forces said the killing of Uday and Qusay will reduce attacks...we tell them it will increase attacks,” said one of a group of hooded gunmen who pledged to continue “the jihad against infidels”.

Uday and Qusay were killed in a US raid on a villa in the northern city of Mosul Tuesday, and US authorities are planning to release photographs of their bodies to overcome widespread Iraqi suspicions over their fate.

The group, flanked by assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, said they were members of “Saddam’s Fedayeen Organization” in the province of Al-Anbar, west of Baghdad, where US forces have repeatedly come under attack by elements believed to be loyalists of Saddam’s ousted regime.

At least 44 US soldiers have been killed in attacks since the United States declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1.

Hailing Uday and Qusay for “choosing martyrdom rather than surrender” to the overwhelming US forces besieging the villa in which they were holed up in Mosul, the gunmen’s statement said:

“We tell the president leader Saddam that his sons have been killed, but the Iraqis and these youth have not been killed.

“We will sacrifice our blood for the land of Iraq, and we pledge to the sons of our nation that we will pursue the jihad against the infidels.”

In a thinly-veiled reference to officials appointed by the US-led coalition that toppled Saddam in April, especially the 25-member transitional Governing Council, the gunmen said “traitors and spies” had “spread” across Iraq.

“We want to fight them before fighting the Americans, and we want to show our Iraqi brethren that this intifada will continue until our land is liberated from the Americans,” said one of the gunmen.—AFP