The US military handed over the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Oday and Qusay, to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, which is taking the corpses for burial in their hometown of Tikrit, the US Army said today.

Two soldiers from the USA’s 101st Airborne Division were killed early today and another was injured when their convoy came under rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire in northern Iraq, the US military said.

US troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad yesterday. It was one of the most intense clashes yet in the daily grind of attacks on American forces.

Nineteen US soldiers have been injured in Iraq when mortar rounds slammed into their base, and another was killed when his convoy was ambushed in Baghdad.

An American soldier was killed in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad, the US military said today.