British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday welcomed the news that two sons of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been killed by US forces in northern Iraq.

"Odai and Qusai Hussein shared their father's responsibility for the many years of suffering by the Iraqi people," Straw said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

"They had the opportunity to hand themselves in to justice and answer for their crimes. They refused to do this," Straw said.

"It goes without saying that we would much have preferred this. But the news that Saddam's sons are no longer a threat to the security of Iraq will be a reassurance to the Iraqi people," Straw added.

Earlier reports quoted a US military commander in Baghdad as saying Tuesday that Odai and Qusai, who were high on the US wanted list, have been killed along with two other people in a fierce gunbattle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The United States has put both Odai and Qusai among the most wanted Iraqis' list and has offered a US$25 million reward for information leading to Saddam's capture and a US$15 million bounty for each of Saddam's two sons.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2003)