FORMER Wiltshire Times photographer John Templeton was among the first cameramen to film live from the house where Saddam Hussein's sons were gunned down.

During a fierce battle on Tuesday, Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed by American troops.

Spending most of his time in Baghdad, Mr Templeton, a freelance cameraman, has been following soldiers as they search for weapons.

He was with US troops during one of their biggest finds at a house in Saddam Hussein's old hometown of Tikrit. They uncovered more than 100 AK47 rifles and two tons of plastic explosives. Mr Templeton, who worked for the Wiltshire Times from 1988 to 1990, said: "We were following 200 troops' raid houses looking for arms and a key figure from Saddam's regime.

"Rushing into a house where there might be someone lying in wait gets your adrenaline going."

Arriving in Iraq in December, Mr Templeton was filming from the USS Constellation during Gulf War Two.

He remembers how nervous he was when he first arrived in Baghdad. He said: "There was a sign hand painted on the floor just as you stepped off the plane saying Down USA. The city felt very creepy. I haven't met anyone jumping for joy when they hear I am English."

Despite his growing experience in the Middle East, the photographer was still worried about a return to Baghdad two weeks ago.

This fear was heightened when he saw the extent of the damage and heard how frustrated local people were with the slow progress made to rebuild infrastructure. "The night before I was due to arrive my girlfriend told me a journalist had been shot dead in the head outside the museum. That made me a little nervous," he said.

"Driving into Iraq, parts of the road have been destroyed. There was a large missile hole in a bridge and bombed out Iraqi tanks along the road.

"Arriving in the capital there is a sense of tension.

"I don't go walking outside the hotel and there are two US tanks parked outside. We never go out alone and never at night."

High temperatures, street children begging for food, power cuts and security worries are now part of Mr Templeton's everyday life, but he hopes the country can rebuild itself over the coming years.

He said: "I would like to be optimistic about how things will turn out.

"Listening to the mortar and AK rounds exploding and the daily deaths of troops maybe it's too early to tell. Problems are beginning to show. Daily attacks on US troops mean that the troops are being more heavy handed in their treatment of Iraqis."

Still hunting for hidden weapons

RAF officer Jules Weeks is working alongside US troops in a bid to find hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Flying officer Weeks, from Melksham, is serving near Baghdad as part of the UK Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Regiment.

Based at the Abu Ghurayb Palace, the regiment is working alongside the 75th Exploitation Task Force from the US, trying to trace members of the old regime and find evidence of weapons.

The JNBCR comprises troops from the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and the RAF Regiment. Based at RAF Honington, Suffolk, the team represents the UK's centre of excellence in NBC capability.

They were sent to Iraq in February as part of a survey group tasked with finding evidence to justify military action.

Flying officer Weeks, 24, said: "We sailed from Plymouth on HMS Ocean with 40 Commando Group. When the conflict started we were with the commandos at Al Faw Peninsula. We were then moved to Umm Qasr and then operated in Basrah for a while before moving north to Talil Airfield."

The former George Ward School pupil was commissioned into the air force in 1998 and has served in Northern Ireland, the Ukraine, Afghanistan and Jordan.