Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam Hussein's two sons, suffered more than 20 bullet wounds each in their final stand against American forces, US military pathologists said today.
The announcement came as two corpses the US says are the slain brothers were shown to journalists at a US military base in Baghdad in a further bid to convince sceptical Iraqis that two of the most feared figures of the former regime would not be coming back.
Acting on a tip from an informant, the US today added to its claimed killing of Saddam's two sons with an announcement that it had captured up to 10 people in Tikrit believed to be members of the former dictator's personal bodyguard.
Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said it was unclear whether the captured men had been protecting him recently but insisted that the US was continuing to "tighten the noose" on the Ba'athist regime.
The capture would provide a further boost to the US's military efforts in the country which, until Uday and Qusay's claimed deaths, had achieved few noticeable successes since the fall of Baghdad on April 9 and was losing soldiers to guerrilla attacks.
A video of the corpses was today also broadcast on Arabic satellite channels in Iraq to provide more evidence for Qusay and Uday's deaths.
Photographs released yesterday, showing the bodies immediately after the they were pulled dead out of the Mosul villa that the US says became the brothers' last hideout, pictured them with bloodied faces but the corpses on display today had been cleaned up a little.
A US military official said they had undergone some post-mortem facial reconstruction - standard practice, he said, and not an attempt to deceive the Iraqi people.
"The two bodies have undergone facial reconstruction with morticians' putty to make them resemble as closely as possible the faces of the brothers when they were alive," the official said.
The man said to be Qusay's uncharacteristic beard, visible in the original photographs, had been shaved off but a moustache, which Saddam's second son normally wore, had been left.
A gaping wound in his claimed elder brother's face, also visible in the earlier pictures, appeared to have been repaired but a hole in the top of his head was still visible to reporters.
Both bodies had multiple scrapes, abrasions and burns. The pathologists said that Uday most likely died from a blow to the head while Qusay had two bullet wounds to his head. But there was no sign that either of them had committed suicide, they added.
Surgeons removed the metal rod that was placed in one of Uday's legs during reconstructive surgery after a 1996 assassination attempt and displayed it to reporters. There were also stitches across the corpses' chests from an autopsy.
Meanwhile tissue samples from both bodies have been sent to a military lab in Washington for DNA testing.
The decision to yesterday release the photographs had proved controversial - and to display the corpses no doubt more so - but the Pentagon's civilian leadership won out over the military. The army's top brass had warned that appearing to gloat over the bloody bodies would set a precedent that could backfire for the families of US soldiers killed in military action.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, yesterday said it was not a snap decision but the Iraqi people were "awaiting ... and deserve confirmation" that the two were dead.
Initial reaction across the Arab world was, however, ambivalent. One Iraqi newspaper claimed to have conducted an instant poll that revealed 80% of those questioned believed the photographs were fakes.
It seemed that little short of putting the bodies on public display in Baghdad would convince some Iraqis. Decades of fear and lies under Saddam and deep suspicion of American motives in occupying their country has left them deeply sceptical.
"We will believe they are dead when Uday's and Qusay's bodies are tied to cars and dragged through the streets so everybody can see them," Muhammad, a Baghdad engineer, told Reuters.
A businessman, Khalil Ali, told the news agency that photographs meant nothing. "They should have been hung up on poles in a square in Baghdad so all Iraqis could see them," he said.
US officials said the bodies would be stored kept under refrigeration at Baghdad airport until a family member came forward to claim them.
The brothers' final hideout came under attack from US special forces on Tuesday after a tip-off from an informant who is reported to be the villa's owner.
A body guard died with the brothers and a fourth person in the house, believed to be Qusay's 14-year-old son, Mustafa, was shot and killed by troops storming the house after missiles had devastated it.
