By Aws al-Sharqi, Sobhi Hadad IOL Correspondents

BAGHDAD, July 23 (IslamOnline.net) – The Iraqi people received the American confirmed killing of ousted Iraqi president's sons, Qusay and Uday, with mixed feelings, as some took to the streets protesting the U.S. move, while others fired shots in the air in jubilation.

U.S. military officials on the ground said they had identified the bodied of Qusay and Uday who were reportedly killed in an attack on a house at al-Falah district in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, July 22.

"Iraqis in Mosul are extremely angry by the U.S. move," Mohammad Tawfik, a journalist, told IslamOnline.net over the phone.

He added that thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of the northern Iraqi city chanting anti-U.S. slogans and calling for increased resistance attacks against the occupation troops.

Tawfik said Iraqis hurled stones at the U.S. forces, who randomly opened fire at the irate protestors, killing one and injuring another.

'Unbelievable'

Observers said the presence of Uday and Qusay in one place at such difficult circumstances was most unlikely and would have been very strange, because they have had sharp differences and Saddam always tried to keep them apart "for security reasons."

Maguid Hamid al-Sammrai, a former colonel at the U.S.-dissolved Iraqi army, told IOL correspondent in Baghdad he did not believe Qusay and Uday had been killed in the U.S. Mosul raid.

He stressed it made no sense that Saddam and his sons were hiding out in two different places especially at this particular moment.

Sammrai further said it was illogical that they were holing up in a house owned by a well-known chieftain of an Iraqi clan.

Ibtesam al-Bayati, an engineer, echoed the same skepticism: "If Qusay and Uday were really killed in the raid, they then died as heroes, because they did not give themselves up to the U.S. troops but they fought them off till they breathed their last.

"We should not be elated by their death regardless of whatever they had done to the Iraqis…They are Iraqis at the end of the day and their killers are the enemies of humanity and Islam," she added.

Tief Hossam al-Rawai, a cadet at the faculty of military engineering, said the death news was nothing but a U.S. trick to deceive the Iraqi people into believing that they were really dead.

"I am pretty sure that Qusay and Uday are alive and in a safe haven…They struck a secret deal with the U.S. to make the Iraqis believe that they were dead to close this file once and for all, especially after Saddam had given Baghdad up to the Americans," he argued.

Jubilation

Other Iraqis in Baghdad “celebrated” the killing of Uday and Qusay, both widely hated by the Iraqi people for their cruel treatment of dozens of persons, with firing thousands of bullets in the air all through Tuesday night and early on Wednesday.

Abbas Kazem, a taxi driver, was happy to hear the news, saying jubilantly: "Qusay and Uday were criminals and Allah Almighty has punished them for their wrongdoings.

"We hoped that the U.S. troops had rounded them up and put them on trial, since their killing at the hands of the Americans would turn them into heroes," he said.

Ahmed Amer, who carried a machine gun shooting in the air, told IOL correspondent late Tuesday: "Today represents for me and my family the greatest news I have ever heard since the end of the rule of  Uday and Qusay’s father."

He said he was happy because he was detained for more than 4 years by the former regime, though he was a member of ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party.

"My wife and my 3 children remained all through that period without any aid, and have depended on my other relatives to keep alive," Amer said.

Touring Baghdad streets late Tuesday, IOL correspondent saw a family standing before its house including a father and his two sons all carrying machine guns and shooting in the air in celebratory manner, rejoiced with the end of Uday and Qusay.

"I can’t express my happiness to hear this incident with simple words.  You can see that we, the three members of my family, are expressing our feelings with shooting in the air," said the father, nick-named Abu-Ali.

Husam Mohammed Al-Jaf, a petroleum engineer, said the death of Uday and Qusay shall put an end for the "linkage of the anti-U.S. resistance with their and their father’s names.

"I am confident that the resistance shall continue because the Iraqi people are behind it and not Uday, Qusay and their father Saddam."

A lady school teacher, called Zahra Adnan, said: "the great joy was killed and shall be buried with burial of Uday and Qusay, because we wanted to see them arrested alive and face trial for the crimes they committed against the people of Iraq, including myself."

The 42-year-old woman said that her only brother was executed by the Saddam regime.

Samia Hussein, a lady reporter and mother of four, said: "I feel sorry for their death because I am a mother, but I am thinking of their father, Saddam, who now feels that his back has broken by this incident."

A number of reporters said that several people were killed or injured due to the sporadic shooting in the air in different parts of Baghdad.

The American soldiers, on their part, also shot bullets in the air as an expression of joy.