American helicopter gunships fired more than 20 missiles during the heated battle in Mosul, demolishing the house in which the two brothers were believed to be hiding, witnesses said yesterday.

Their deaths are a major success for coalition forces pursuing the family of the toppled Iraqi ruler and his loyalists.

WASHINGTON: Describing the death of Saddam Hussein’s sons as positive news, US President George W. Bush has assured a more prosperous future for the people of Iraq.

Mr Bush was pleased to hear the news,” White House Press Secretary McClellan Scott said.

“We were pleased to learn from the Department of Defence of today’s action against Uday and Qusay Hussein,” a statement from the White House said.

“Over a period of many years, these two individuals were responsible for countless atrocities committed against the Iraqi people and they can no longer cast a shadow of hate on Iraq,” it said.

Lt-Gen Ricardo Sanchez, coalition ground forces Commander in Baghdad, said the deaths of Qusay and Uday had proved to the Iraqi people that at least two members of Saddam Hussein’s regime would not be coming back to power.

HONG KONG: The death of Saddam Hussein’s two sons is nothing less than “a great day for the new Iraq,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said here on Wednesday.

“These two people were at the head of a regime that wasn’t just a security threat because of its weapons programmes. It was also responsible — as we can see from the mass graves — for the torture and killing of thousands and thousands of Iraqis,” he said. — Agencies

The attack, which followed news that Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a gunbattle in northern Iraq yesterday, brought to 40 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

The US spokesman said the soldiers were from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Ramadi is in the “Sunni triangle” to the north and west of Baghdad where many of the guerrilla attacks on US troops have been concentrated.

Lieut-Gen Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said yesterday that the killings of Uday, 39, and Qusay, two years younger, would deal a blow to guerrillas who had staged the attacks and ambushes on U.S. forces in Iraq.

But Mr Paul Bremer, US administrator of Iraq, said there was a risk of revenge attacks by Saddam loyalists.

Meanwhile, an audiotape purportedly carrying the voice of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein was broadcast by an Arab satellite broadcaster today, a day after US forces killed two of his sons in a fierce battle in Mosul. He ordered his former soldiers to rise up against the American occupation.

The speaker said the tape was made on July 20. The voice on the tape urged all of Saddam’s former soldiers to take up arms against the Americans and not to cooperate with the Iraqi army being rebuilt by US occupation forces.

“Today I speak in particular to ... your military honour and appeal to the promise you made to the nation and to the people,” said the voice, which sounded like Saddam. There was no way to immediately and independently confirm that it was the former dictator’s voice.

“On April 11 and 12, we started to reorganise the Baath party and people to resist the enemy, and we were in contact with the men of the armed forces,” the voice said. The Americans captured Baghdad on April 9. — Reuters, AP

The plan calls for new troops to serve one-year tours, one official said, commenting on condition of anonymity.

The subject of replacement troops has been a sensitive issue because some soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division have been in the region since last fall.

Some soldiers and their families have complained bitterly about delays in their homecoming.

They said they were led to believe they would return home once major fighting in Baghdad was over. But since President George W. Bush declared major combat ended on May 1, they had remained there to try to stabilise Iraq.

US Embassy spokeswoman Linda Cheatham said General Abizaid’s visit was the first since he assumed his command, that included responsibility for US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The General has recently become the Central Command chief, so he is here on an introductory visit,” Ms Cheatham said.

She refused to give details of the visit, which began late yesterday, but Pakistani newspapers said Abizaid wants Pakistan to send two army brigades to Iraq.

Until now, Pakistan has not sent any troops, saying that it would like to see a United Nations mandate or a command led by the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

General Abizaid is to meet the Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who withdrew Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan’s Taliban government after the September 11 attacks on the USA and joined the US-led anti-terror coalition.

The USA has been looking for additional troops from several countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq. India, has refused a US request for troops.

And Pakistani religious parties have warned General Musharraf against sending soldiers to Iraq, threatening nationwide demonstrations. — AP

Idris said the bombers aimed at waging a holy war to warn “infidels” about oppressing Muslims. But Idris, alias Jhoni Hendrawan, 35, also said when he heard the blast from afar, “I felt sad... worried that this action would not be accepted by Allah.”

Idris was arrested last month and has been described as deputy field commander of the attack which killed 202 persons, mostly Australian and other Western holidaymakers, on October 12 last year.

He was testifying in the trial of Mukhlas, who is accused of authorising the attack and could face the death sentence if convicted.

The police says the Al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group carried out the attack on two packed nightspots to avenge oppression of Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Idris told the court that he was sworn in as a JI member for the Pekanbaru area on Indonesia’s Sumatra island but claimed not to knowing what position Mukhlas occupied. — AFP

Researchers have known for years that carbon is stored in the Earth’s mantle, a layer of plasticky rock that lies beneath the planet’s fragile crust.

Exactly how much is down there is unknown. Most estimates, drawn from analyses of gases emerging from the mantle, say the store is many times more than all carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere, soil and sea combined.

The worry is that if just a part of this gigantic reservoir is quickly released as carbon dioxide, that could create a runaway greenhouse effect. The carbon dioxide-soaked atmosphere would store up heat from the sun, shrivelling plant life and destroying species along the food chain.

"The (mantle) reservoir is just gigantic compared with anything that we have on the Earth’s surface," says Hans Keppler, a professor at the Institute of Sciences at Germany’s University of Tuebingen.

Reporting in the new issue of Nature releasing tomorrow, Keppler and his colleagues conducted an ambitious experiment aimed at finding whether mantle rock is a stable storage for carbon dioxide.

Most of the rock in the Earth’s upper mantle is a crystalline silicate called olivine.

Carbonate rocks have a much lower melting point than olivine, which is able to absorb the punishing furnace-like heat radiating from the Earth’s core and still not melt.

“Once the carbonate comes up to the surface, as soon as it is below (a pressure of) 20 or 30 kilobars, which corresponds to a depth of 40 or 60 km in the mantle, as soon as it comes up beyond this depth, it will decompose and release carbon dioxide."

“All arrangements have been finalised for the resumption of train link. The Samjhauta Express will start operation from next month,” Tourism Minister Rais Munir was quoted as saying by ‘Online News’.

Mr Munir said Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has also sent a proposal to India for resuming the suspended air links between the two countries after establishment of bilateral road and rail contacts.

Pakistan has also in principle decided to restore air links with India and its flag carrier PIA will start operating flights to Delhi and Mumbai soon after the decision is finalised.

A decision has been taken in principle for restoring air-links with India, Chairman of Pakistan International Airlines Ahmed Saeed said. — PTI