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As Iraqis debated whether video footage of Saddam Hussein's dead sons was authentic, explosions and gunfire rang out in Baghdad Saturday, another reminder that attacks by insurgents remain a threat. No US soldiers were reported killed, a military spokesman said.
In Baghdad's al-Shoala neighborhood, the commander of Iraq's national police academy was wounded in a raid against suspected carjackers, police told The Associated Press.
It's not uncommon to hear gunfire and explosions in Baghdad during the night, and the military had no details about the incidents Saturday morning. There were also reports that shots were fired along the main highway leading to the northern city of Mosul, where Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai were killed Tuesday, but details weren't immediately available.
Iraq. Brig. Ahmed Kadhim, 56, was shot around 1 a.m. while leading a police raid, said his assistant, Capt. Mushtak Fadhil.
He said several Iraqi police were trying to arrest five suspected carjackers when shots were fired. None of the police were killed but Kadhim was shot in the right calf and taken to a hospital and later released. Five other policemen were wounded, including one critically.
Fadhil said the five were arrested.
Baghdadis have complained that kidnappings, car thefts and carjackings are getting worse in the city, which is patrolled by Iraqi police, many of whom carry sidearms.
Iraqis continued to debate whether videotape of the brothers released Friday would convince people of their deaths. Both bodies were displayed to journalists in a further attempt by American occupation authorities to prove that the two are really dead.
The newspaper Azzaman wrote about the bodies, but pointed out that few Iraqi journalists were allowed to see the brothers.
Arab satellite media and CNN broadcast images of the bodies throughout Iraq and the Arab world. The corpses appeared markedly changed from the autopsy-style photographs released a day earlier. The thick beards -- grown, officials said, during 3 1/2 months on the run -- were shaved and trimmed, their faces rebuilt and a gash gone from the face of the body identified as Odai.
The display appeared to be a calculated gamble by coalition authorities, who may have produced more convincing evidence but who also offended Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere by altering the bodies and delaying burial.
"Showing dead and deformed bodies on TV is not acceptable," said Amer Ahmed al-Azawi, a 55-year-old Baghdad merchant. "But the Americans are criminals and unbelievers. We got rid of one tyrant and we ended up with a bigger one."
Hamza Mansour, secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front in neighboring Jordan, said the display violated Islamic custom.
"The bodies of Odai and Qusai should have been washed, shrouded and buried immediately, but the Americans have no respect for our traditions and doctrine and they acted in a very unethical manner," he said.
US officials say Odai, 39, and Qusai, 37, were killed Tuesday in a gunbattle with US troops, who raided a villa in the northern city of Mosul, directed there by an Iraqi tipster. Two other Iraqis in the house also were killed.
(China Daily July 27, 2003)
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