With their coffins wrapped in the Iraqi flag but guarded by troops of their mortal enemy, the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were laid to rest on Saturday in a dusty cemetery in the village where their father was born.
Nearly two weeks after Saddam's sons were killed when US troops raided their hideout in the northern town of Mosul, around 150 tribesmen and relatives gathered in Awja, on the edge of the town of Tikrit, to dig graves in the sun-baked ground and pile earth and stones on the coffins.
Mahmoud al-Nada, an elder of the Beijat tribal group that includes Saddam Hussein's family, led the mourners in prayer at the graveside as wind whipped clouds of dust into the air and a large force of American troops stood guard at the cemetery gate.
Qusay's 14-year-old son, Mustafa, was buried alongside his father and uncle. He was killed with them during a six-hour gun battle when more than 200 US troops supported by helicopter gunships raided the house where they were hiding on 22 July.
The American-led Coalition Provisional Authority now running Iraq hopes the brothers' burial will end a controversy over the bodies.
Uday and Qusay were among the most cruel and feared men in Iraq, but officials had feared that their funeral might be a focus for anti-coalition protests and the graves a shrine for the deposed regime.
However, there was no large-scale protest and the burials in the old regime's stronghold passed off peacefully, with one military official describing the ceremony as quiet and uneventful.
The bullet-riddled bodies, which had been kept in a refrigerated morgue at Baghdad airport, were delivered to the Iraqi Red Crescent yesterday morning to be driven to Tikrit in an ambulance.
The deposed dictator's family was said to be angered by the way American mortuary attendants prepared the dead: Muslim tradition calls for bodies not to be embalmed or retouched and to be buried before sundown on the day of death.
The brothers' faces, however, were heavily made up using cosmetic putty before officials allowed them to be filmed by journalists in an attempt to persuade a sceptical Iraqi public they really were dead.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from