Celebratory gunfire in Baghdad

Widespread and sporadic gunfire crackled across Baghdad after dark as word spread that Saddam Hussein's feared and hated sons may have been killed in a gunbattle with U.S. troops.

"It's celebration. People have heard about what happened," a U.S. military spokesman said.

Much of it was Kalashnikov rifles, but Reuters correspondents also heard some machinegun bursts and small explosions. Tracer fire could be seen in the sky from several directions.

U.S. officials said earlier that U.S. troops may have killed Saddam's two sons Uday and Qusay in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday in a four-hour battle at a villa.

The deaths, if confirmed, would be a telling U.S. gain in the struggle to convince Iraqis the horrors the two sons and their father represent can never return.

Uday, 39, Saddam's eldest son, was famed and feared throughout Iraq for his cruelty and playboy lifestyle before the Iraqi president was ousted by U.S.-led forces on April 9. Qusay, born in 1966, was one of his father's most trusted lieutenants.

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