KILL THE COUSINS FIRST

Iraqis warn of revenge on 'traitor to country': 'The cousins of Uday and Qusay are arranging to kill the family. The family will be killed': U.S. informant (Michael Mathes, July 28, 2003, Agence France-Presse)

Angry residents of this northern city yesterday warned Nawaf al-Zaidan, the tribal chief who owned the mansion where Uday and Qusay Saddam Hussein died in a blistering gunbattle, that revenge is coming to him.

"He's a traitor to his country and religion," said a shopkeeper across from Mr. Zaidan's gutted home, destroyed in the long but one-sided battle between Saddam Hussein's sons and U.S. forces last Tuesday.

And whether they loved Saddam's regime or not, many here view Mr. Zaidan, the suspected informer who tipped off the Americans, as a traitor for the sake of a US$30-million pricetag on Uday and Qusay's heads.

"Nawaf and his son and the money he received will all end up in a grave," predicted Mr. Zaidan's old neighbourhood shopkeeper.

The Americans will not say whether Mr. Zaidan is the man who turned in Saddam's sons, but neither will they deny it.

Asked yesterday about the fate of the informant, a senior officer from the U.S. Army's 101 Airborne Division in Mosul said: "We'll take care of our sources."

The problem isn't revenge killings, but that we are stopping the Iraqi people from pre-emptively revenging themselves upon the Saddam family and other Ba'athists. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 28, 2003 10:47 AM