US forces were focusing their attention on Saddam Hussein’s ancestral power base of Tikrit yesterday, after adding the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to a string of rapid-fire battlefield victories.

American forces were today expected to step up their hunt for the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, after four US Marines were seriously injured in a suicide attack in the centre of the Iraqi capital.

THE US military yesterday said it had found the body of the bodyguard of Iraqi commander “Chemical Ali,” but Iraq dismissed reports the military chief himself may have died in an air strike.

The fight for Baghdad is “far from over” despite a raid into its centre by US troops today, a military spokesman at Central Command in Qatar said today.

US aircraft have dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the start of the war, a feat made possible partly because the “smart” bombs are now produced for a relatively cheap $19,000 each.