Baghdad, Iraq ? Their faces covered in mortician’s makeup, patches of hair sprouting from their scalps, two bodies were displayed to journalists Friday in a further attempt by American occupation authorities to convince skeptical Iraqis that Saddam Hussein’s sons Odai and Qusai are really dead.

Meanwhile, the hunt for their father intensified, with the arrests of 13 men believed to include some of Saddam’s bodyguards in a raid near the former leader’s hometown, Tikrit, the U.S. Army announced Friday.

“We continue to tighten the noose,” said Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division. U.S. officials have expressed hope that the killings of Odai and Qusai would weaken the anti-American resistance and lead coalition forces to Saddam.

Arab satellite media and CNN broadcast images of the bodies throughout Iraq and the Arab world. The corpses appeared markedly changed from the autopsy-style photographs released a day earlier. The thick beards — grown, officials said, during 3 1/2 months on the run — were now shaved and trimmed; their faces rebuilt and a gash gone from the face of the body identified as Odai.

The display appeared to be a calculated gamble by coalition authorities, who may have produced more convincing evidence but who also offended Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere by altering the bodies and delaying burial.

“Showing dead and deformed bodies on TV is not acceptable,” protested Amer Ahmed al-Azawi, a 55-year-old Baghdad merchant. “But the Americans are criminals and unbelievers. We got rid of one tyrant, and we ended up with a bigger one.”

Hamza Mansour, secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front in neighboring Jordan, said the display violated Islamic custom.

Baghdad Iraqis thumb through Arab newspapers showing the pictureless reports of Saddam Hussein's dead sons. The U.S. military released graphic pictures showing the reconstructed faces of Odai and Qusai Friday as it sought to convince Iraqis the feared siblings were dead.