US president George W Bush yesterday hailed the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s two sons as the clearest sign yet that “the former regime is gone and will not be coming back.”

US FORCES launched a massive operation early yesterday to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime in a show of force designed to stem a wave of deadly attacks on US troops.

The US-led coalition officially ordered Iraqis today to disarm by mid-June, part of a high-profile effort to get weapons off the streets and return public security to cities under American occupation.

A council of up to nine Iraqis will probably lead the country’s still unformed interim government through the coming months, the American civil administrator said today.