In 2003, the United States flagrantly launched the Iraq War on the grounds that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction, bypassing the United Nations Security Council.
In just one month, U.S. ground forces conquered Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein embarked on a journey of exile with his sons and daughters and cronies.
In order to capture Saddam Hussein and his family, the US military laid a net of heaven and earth, but it always flew empty. It took more than three months to find out the whereabouts of Saddam's two sons, Udai and Kusai, with the help of an informant.
On the morning of July 22, heavily armed U.S. troops surrounded a luxury villa in Iraq's Mosul province, followed by a fierce attack.
After six hours of fierce fighting, at the cost of four wounded soldiers, the U.S. army finally killed four people, including Uday and Kusai.
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After the fall of Baghdad, former President Saddam Hussein became a loner. Most of the bodyguards around him had already dispersed, and only a few loyal ones were still with him.
Seeing that the tide was over, Saddam Hussein issued an ultimatum to the people of the country, asking them to die with the American army, but he ran away with his cronies. His sons and daughters also scattered and fled, to a different end.
The three daughters had better luck, the eldest daughter Lagarde and the second daughter Lana successfully escaped to Jordan, where they received political asylum from the Jordanian king. The youngest daughter, Hala, surrendered with her husband. Because they were women, the U.S. military did not exterminate them.
But Saddam's two sons, Uday and Kusai, were not so lucky. After the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, the two became important targets for the U.S. military and had to flee all the way.
U.S. forces frantically hunted down key members of Saddam's government throughout Iraq, and also issued the famous "Poker Wanted Order", printing their photos on playing cards and distributing them to soldiers.
On the wanted list, Saddam Hussein's code name is "A of Spades" and ranks first. Kusai and Uday, code-named "Plum Blossom A" and "Red Peach A", ranked second and third respectively, with a reward of $15 million each.
The U.S. military spent a lot of money to reward these two people precisely because of their special status and noble status in Saddam Hussein's government.
As Saddam's eldest son, Uday had been Saddam's default successor. But he has a tyrannical personality, kills innocents indiscriminately, and gradually loses his father's trust.
Later, during an assassination, Udai was seriously injured and became disabled.
Since then, Saddam Hussein has shifted the center of gravity of power to his younger son, Kusai.
Unlike his brutal brother, known as the "wolf", Kusai is calm and thoughtful, and is nicknamed "Snake", which is deeply appreciated by Saddam.
Before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Qusay was already in power, becoming the de facto deputy commander of the Iraqi armed forces.
That's why the U.S. military has to go so far in search of these two men.
As long as these two men do not die, sooner or later the Iraqi regime will be taken back by them and their supporters.
The escape of Uday and Kusai was not smooth.
In June 2003, accompanied by Saddam's personal secretary, Tikryti, the two traveled to Mosul province in northern Iraq.
They initially hid in a farming family in the southern Part of the Sinjar Mountains. To buy off the farmers, Tikritti put a box of dollars on the ground and said to the farmers, "Take as much as you want." ”
After staying in the farmer's house for a few days, Uday and others went to the Syrian region and the homes of Bedouin relatives, but they were not accepted and had to return to the farmer's home.
Soon after, Uday and the others made their last escape, fleeing to Mosul, hiding in a villa provided by their cousin, Nawaf Zaidan.
Since then, Kusai's son Mustafa has also moved there and lived with them. It was also here that they were betrayed and eventually died at the hands of the U.S. military.
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In order to find the whereabouts of Uday and Kusai, the US military has exhausted all means.
In addition to issuing "playing card wanted orders," they threatened to lure Iraqi prisoners of war in an attempt to extract useful information from their mouths.
Under the temptation of money and the threat of force, many Iraqi soldiers chose to give in, providing the U.S. military with information about the location of Saddam's family.
But the so-called three caves of cunning rabbits, Saddam's father and son constantly changed their hiding places, and each time the Americans pounced.
The U.S. army, which dispatched a large number of troops, such as the enemy, every time they looked at people to go to the hiding place in the empty building, although they gritted their teeth in hatred, they could only stare dryly.
This cat-and-mouse game has been going on for months.
It wasn't until July 21, 2003, that an informant provided the U.S. military with an important piece of information—Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusai, were hiding in a two-story villa in a commercial and residential area of Mosul, which gave the U.S. military an opportunity to hunt them down.
The informant was the owner of the villa, Nawaf Zaidan.
As a "cousin" of Saddam's family, why did Zaidan betray them?
There are two reasons for this, one is revenge, and the other is to seek wealth.
It is not difficult to understand the plot of wealth, but where does the enmity come from? It turned out that Zaidan and Saddam hussein did not have any real relationship, just an ordinary businessman.
But he always presented himself as a relative of Saddam Hussein to do business. When the news reached Saddam Hussein, he was furious and imprisoned Zaidan for "conspiring with the president."
Later, Zaidan spent a lot of money to bribe Udai to escape the prison. Since then, he has hated Saddam Hussein.
After his release from prison, he often organized dances at home while doing business, and often invited Udai to come to banquets in order to accumulate his prestige.
But once Uday got drunk and drew his gun at a banquet, shooting everywhere, killing several dancers and maiming one of Zaidan's legs.
Zaidan unsuccessfully sought medical treatment in many ways, and finally had to have an amputation.
Since then, although Zaidan is still superficially happy, he has already hated Udai in his heart.
In early July 2003, Uday and the others arrived at Zaidan's doorstep in a BMW.
The first thing Uday said when he saw Zaidan was: "You have enjoyed the president's preferential treatment for many years, and now it is time to repay the favor!" ”
Zaidan thought that the opportunity for revenge had come, so he immediately agreed to his request, placed them in a two-story villa, and secretly plotted revenge.
However, in order to ensure their own safety to the greatest extent, Uday and others took Zaidan's entire family hostage, and it was not so easy to take revenge.
So, from the beginning of July to July 21, Zaidan persuaded Uday to kill the bodyguards accompanying him, citing the possibility of informing them.
The suspicious and tyrannical Uday listened to him and killed all 17 bodyguards around him, leaving only one.
Seeing that the time had come, on the evening of July 21, Zaidan met with Brigadier General Frank Hermick, deputy commander of the US 101st Airborne Division stationed in Mosul, and revealed to him that Uday and Cussay were living in his home.
Upon hearing the news, the intelligence services of the US military immediately began to investigate, and finally determined that there were indeed important targets at the site, and decided to launch an operation early the next morning.
At 6 a.m. on July 22, the operation began. In the name of "eating breakfast", Zaidan took the whole family out of the villa, settled in a safe place, and then returned to the villa with his eldest son.
After that, Colonel Jonderson, the commander of the U.S. 101st Air Assault Division, led 200 officers and men to the scene in 12 Humvees and an armored vehicle to establish a safe position around the villa.
At 10 a.m., a group of heavily armed American soldiers came to the villa and rang the doorbell in the way agreed upon in advance.
Zaidan pretended to open the door, and the U.S. military took him and his son away under the pretext of "not cooperating with the search."
After confirming the personnel and environment inside the villa, under the cover of as many as 25 vehicles, 200 American soldiers were fully armed and surrounded the villa.
At 10:10, the commandos entered the hall of the villa and prepared to enter the stairwell from the first floor to the second floor.
But the Uday brothers continued to resist with the villa's tight bulletproof equipment, and with machine guns, they frantically strafed the American troops.
After five minutes of fierce fighting, four American soldiers were wounded, but they were still unable to break through the defense line and had to withdraw.
The armed attack failed, and the US military came up with another method of outsmarting it.
They sent a psychological warfare expert to shout into the house in Arabic, trying to persuade them to lay down their weapons and surrender, but the two brothers were unmoved and threw several grenades at the Americans.
Therefore, the U.S. military decided to mobilize air forces and use heavy weapons to suppress firepower.
At 10:45, the U.S. military called up the Mk19 grenade launcher and the M2 Browning machine gun and continued to shoot at the villa.
The OH-58D helicopter also hovered over the villa and fired 4 rockets. After more than an hour of fierce attack, the villa still stands.
At 12:00 noon, the commandos once again tried to enter the interior of the villa, but the stairwell from the first floor to the second floor had been blocked by Uday and others with thick bulletproof glass, and the soldiers could not enter and had to evacuate again.
Unable to attack for a long time, the US army thought it was very difficult to capture the two brothers, so it decided to launch a second fire suppression, "to see people alive, to see corpses when dead."
At 12:30, the Mk19 grenade launcher and the M2 Browning machine gun launched another fierce attack. At the same time, the U.S. military fired 10 tow missiles at the villa.
The missile fell into the room, and the whole villa began to burn, and even the roof collapsed. When the helicopter was withdrawn, the villa gradually became quiet.
According to the description of the people present at the time, "After the missile attack ended, the original noisy sound was gone, and suddenly it felt that the whole world was quiet, and it seemed that even the wind was still." ”
At 1 p.m., the U.S. commandos entered the villa for the third time.
By this time, Kusai and another bodyguard had died under the previous artillery attack, leaving only Uday and Kusai's son Mustafa to resist.
The commandos made it to the second floor and into the bedroom.
At 1:21, they killed Udai, who was hiding in the toilet, and Mustafa, who was hiding under the bed.
Later, Iraqi troops arrived and, together with the U.S. troops, conducted a search in the villa and eventually found all four bodies.
Judging from the corpses, Uday and Kusai both disguised themselves, both of them grew beards, and Uday shaved all his hair.
However, the U.S. military can still identify them at a glance.
After that, the US military sent people to take pictures and archives of all corners of the villa and the corpses, and took the 4 corpses out of the villa. The six-hour military operation came to an end.
To further confirm the identity of the body, the U.S. military took the body back to Baghdad airport for examination.
In order to ensure the accuracy of the test, they used a variety of testing methods, including dental records, X-ray examinations and DNA tests, etc., and also called Saddam's personal secretary, Tikritis, to identify them, and finally determined that Uday and Kusai were indeed killed.
Subsequently, Sanchez, the commander of the U.S. military in Iraq, could not wait to hold a press conference to announce the death of the two brothers and show photos of their bodies.
In the photo, the bodies of the two men lie in a body bag, their bare upper bodies covered with blood, and their expressions are very vicious. This move of the US military is precisely to kill chickens and scare monkeys and hit the fighting spirit of Saddam Hussein's supporters.
The tragic deaths of the Uday and Kusai brothers were made public, and Saddam Hussein's government officials shuddered.
At this time, Saddam Hussein was still on the run.
Hearing of the death of his two sons, he delivered a memorial speech through a tape recorder, calling him a hero who defended the dignity of the country and saying: "The deaths of Uday and Qusai will arouse the fighting spirit of the Iraqi people." In the face of the enemy, the Iraqi people will run out of bullets, shed the last drop of blood, and vow to live and die with the country. ”
After the deaths of Uday and Qusay, the U.S. military brought the bodies of the two to the base and sent funeral personnel to perform cosmetic surgery on them, which also left them with the last dignity.
The U.S. military then handed over the bodies of the two to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society for resettlement.
On August 2, the bodies of the two brothers were returned to their hometown of Oja in Tikrit for burial.
Some members of Saddam's family held secret funerals for him, which were attended by just over 100 people. The two brothers, Udai and Kusai, who were once beautiful and alone, finally ended their short lives sloppily.