Baghdad - Seven US soldiers were reportedly killed in two separate attacks in Iraq, while press reports said Friday that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's aides were likely to be executed hin the coming few days. Insurgents killed four marines Thursday in the western Iraqi province of Anbar during a security offensive, the US military reported Friday.
Another three soldiers were killed Thursday in a blast in the northern province of Nineveh, bringing US military fatalities in Iraq to over 3,750 since the war in 2003.
In another development, press reports said Friday that the death sentence handed down to Saddam's close aides, including his cousin, so-called "Chemical Ali", would be carried out in the next days. However, a prosecutor has denied that a date has been set.
The Pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted Badi Arif Ezzat, the lawyer of former deputy commander of Iraqi army operations Hussein Rashid Tikriti, as saying executions would be carried out on Saturday or Sunday.
Iraq's appeals court upheld Tuesday death sentences against Saddam's three close aides, including Tikriti, for waging a genocide campaign against Kurds in al-Anfal areas of northern Iraq in 1987.
The chief prosecutor in the al-Anfal case, Jafar al-Musawi, told al-Sharq al-Awsat that he has not been informed of the date for the executions.
The death sentences will have to be carried out within 30 days in accordance with the law of the court, the trial's judges said.
But Ezzat said: "Although I consider the law establishing the tribunal unjust and illegal as it was issued under occupation, I will use articles of the law that say a death sentence should be carried out 30 days after its ratification rather than within 30 days as claimed."
The defence lawyer also disputed a statement by Iraq's supreme criminal tribunal that a presidential ratification of the death sentence was unnecessary.
Al-Musawi confirmed the lawyer's view saying the death sentence should be referred to the presidency for ratification.
"The question of the implementation of the death sentences is up to the executive; the tribunal has completed its work. But as the chief prosecutor, I should be informed in order to attend the execution or send in someone else, "al-Musawi said.
Saddam's cousin, Ali Hasan al-Majid, who earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" because of the use of mustard gas against the Kurds, and the former dictator's defence minister, Sultan Hashim, were also sentenced to death.
Thousands of Kurds perished in an ethnic cleansing campaign led by Majid in northern Iraq in 1987.
The appeals court also upheld life sentences against two other accused in the trial and the release of a third.
Saddam was put to death in December 2006 for crimes against humanity. His regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003.
Meanwhile, Iraqi army forces arrested 17 suspected gunmen, including four wanted by security agencies, in a raid in west Mosul early Friday, independent Voices of Iraq news agency reported citing Col. Hadji Maher.
The forces also discovered two hideouts used for making homemade explosives, Maher added.
