MOSUL, July 26: US army engineers and Iraqi workers on Saturday started demolishing the mansion where Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a massive assault four days earlier.

“Demolition began today and it will take approximately 10 days,” said Lt Col Mike Rorex, from an engineer corps assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, which led the raid.

“The building is structurally unsound. Its a safety hazard,” he said.

Troops and workers were using a pneumatic drill to break up the roof of the building, pulverized by anti-tank weapons and small arms fire from ground vehicles and attack helicopters in a four-hour pummeling on Tuesday.

Uday, Qusay, his teenage son and a bodyguard were believed killed in the assault in the northern city of Mosul where the brothers were in hiding.

Demolition work was complicated by the mansion sharing a party wall with a neighbouring house, Rorex said.—AFP