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Baghdad: Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were killed in a six-hour firefight on July 22 when US forces surrounded and then stormed a palatial villa in this Northern Iraqi town, a senior American General said.

"We are certain that Odai and Qusai were killed today,'' said Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez at a news conference in Baghdad.

"They died in a fierce gunbattle,'' Sanchez added.

He told reporters that soldiers from the US Army's 101st Airborne Division were working on a tip from an Iraqi informant that the sons were in the house.

When US troops approached the building, gunmen inside opened fire with small arms. The "suspects barricaded themselves in the house'' and "resisted fiercely'', he said.

Sanchez said the two sons, who held key posts in the former Saddam regime, were identified physically at the scene and taken to Baghdad. Coalition forces still were searching for Saddam, Sanchez said without elaboration as to where.

"The bodies were in a condition where you could identify them,'' Sanchez told reporters at a hastily- called news conference in Baghdad.

He said the operation lasted six hours and included helicopters, Special Forces and members of the 101st Airborne Division.