BAGHDAD, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The United States military on Friday showed battered bodies of Saddam Hussein's two sons to reporters to convince Iraqis that Uday and Qusay had been killed by U.S.-led coalition forces.

　　The bodies of Uday and Qusay displayed in an air-conditioned t ent at the Baghdad international airport contained more than 20 bullet wounds and the faces had been partly reconstructed.

　　Uday, 39 and Qusay, 37, were killed on Tuesday after a six-hour fierce battle with U.S.-led coalition forces, that raided a villa in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and fired more than 20 missiles.

　　U.S. military officials said that the facial reconstruction, used to repair wounds, particularly to the face of Uday, was a standard practice and there was no intention to deceive the public.

　　The display of the two bodies came after the release of still photographs of the bodies of the two brothers by the U.S. military on Thursday failed to convince the sceptical Iraqis that the two most feared men in the ousted Saddam Hussein's regime were dead.

　　Doctors and medical officials said Uday was believed to have died from a head injury caused by a blunt object and Qusay had two bullet wounds to his head, adding they did not think the wounds were self-inflicted.

　　The U.S. military had offered a 15-million-U.S. dollars reward for information leading to the capture or death of the two brothers, who were the No. 2 and No. 3 on the U.S. list of the most-wanted former Iraqi officials.

　　U.S. medical personnel said they treated the bodies, which had been refrigerated to slow decomposition, with the same respect they would accord any corpse.

　　The U.S. civil administration in Iraq was consulting the Iraqi Governing Council on how to preserve the bodies according to Islamic custom, which demands burial as soon as possible.

　　A final report on the brothers' deaths was expected within six weeks, U.S. officials said. End