Saddam's Home Town Still Loyal to Him

[Khephra]

TIKRIT, Iraq -- Pictures of Saddam Hussein still hang in Tarek Saber's restaurant in Tikrit, the former president's home town. Locals munch on kebabs and hummus underneath the portraits, unafraid to talk of their loyalty to him.

Even if the U.S.-led coalition has managed to kill Saddam's sons Qusai and Odai, it won't find the man himself, Saber insisted Thursday. "He is the last great fighter. He is no ordinary man," he said.

U.S. troops had driven through the town Wednesday announcing over loudspeakers that the feared brothers were gone for good, killed in a Tuesday raid. "The coalition troops announce the deaths of Odai and Qusai in Mosul," they said in Arabic. Tikritis listened skeptically.

With Odai and Qusai gone, and the $25 million bounty on Saddam's head, the noose around his neck is growing ever tighter, coalition officials claim. But the money doesn't seem likely to spur a betrayal by the people here, where Saddam was born and members of his clan dominate.

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