The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not say whether the Iraqi leaders were killed in Monday's attack.

"We just don't know who might have been killed," he said.

"Obviously we hope that some part of the leadership was taken out of action, but we don't know at this point who might have been there at the time the ordnance arrived."

"There was some intelligence that came in this morning suggesting a number of Iraqi officials, intelligence officials and possibly Saddam and his two sons, were gathered at some building in Baghdad, I don't have the location," the official said.

"Central Command had aircraft in the air who were given the coordinates, they dropped some ordnance on the building and destroyed it," the official added.

He said the building was not a bunker.

Earlier, the US television news channel MSNBC reported that US officials believed that Saddam and his two sons may have been killed in the attack.

SPACE.WIRE