Marine task force heads towards Tikrit

A Marines task force headed north from Baghdad today, seeking to destroy any Iraqi forces remaining on the route to Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

The first TV news footage of Tikrit indicated there were few Iraqi defences north of the city.

The footage, aired by CNN, showed no signs of active defences on a road north of Tikrit and suggested that intensive US airstrikes had taken a heavy toll on the desert city’s military forces.

CNN correspondent Brent Sadler reported that US military officers were negotiating with tribal chiefs in Tikrit for a peaceful surrender of the city.

Sadler, who was about 90 miles north-west of Baghdad, was told by local residents that pro-Saddam militiamen had fled. But Sadler’s team had to leave Tikrit after being stopped by local gunmen and coming under gunfire.

Asked about the CNN footage, Maj Randi Steffy, a spokeswoman for US Central Command, said: “That would be considered an ongoing operation. We don’t have any information for you at this time.”

She added that US forces are “pleased with the progress we’re making in the north.”

Though Tikrit has been depicted as a possible site for a last stand by Saddam’s loyalists, US officials in the past few days have been playing down the prospect of an all-out battle there because of desertions and damage from the sustained airstrikes.

Nonetheless, a task force from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was moving northward from Baghdad. Named Task Force Tripoli, it included several regimental combat teams and light-armour reconnaissance battalions.

With combat in most of Iraq over or winding down, the US military was shifting its focus to stabilising the country. One project is to establish joint patrols by US soldiers and Iraqi police, aimed at curbing the rampant looting that has wracked Baghdad, Mosul and other cities.

In another sign that the end of the war is near, US commanders are preparing to send home some of their warplanes.

Vice Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of naval forces in the war, said two or three of the five US aircraft carriers launching planes on missions over Iraq may head home soon. Each carrier has about 80 planes aboard, including about 50 strike aircraft.

He said the USS Kitty Hawk, which has operated in the Persian Gulf since February, probably would be the first to leave. The USS Constellation, also in the Gulf, probably would go next, he said.

Once the combat ends, US officials will focus on Iraq’s post-war reconstruction. Jay Garner, the retired US general who will run the initial Iraqi civil administration under American occupation, said it was difficult to predict the duration of his task.

“We are starting on a journey,” he said in an interview aired today by Sky Television. “I don’t quite know when it’s going to end. It will end as soon as we hand this nation back to the Iraqis.”

One of the remaining missions for US forces is to track down the 12 American soldiers still listed as missing or captured. With the Iraqi government gone and its the army dispersed, finding Iraqis who know where the POWs are has proved difficult so far.

US Brig Gen Vincent Brooks, at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, expressed hope that more people would be willing to share secrets about potential POW sightings now that Saddam’s regime has collapsed.

Army Private Jessica Lynch, who was rescued April 1 from a hospital in southern Iraq after an Iraqi civilian tipped soldiers off, became the first POW to return home yesterday. The United States lists five other soldiers as missing and seven as prisoners of war.

After a flight from a military base in Germany, Lynch – who has extensive injuries – was taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington.

The war continued to be hazardous for those reporting it. Gunmen ambushed and kidnapped three Malaysian journalists in Baghdad, killing their Iraqi interpreter and injuring two Malaysian relief workers, officials said today. The journalists were later released unharmed.

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, two Turkish journalists were injured yesterday when assailants opened fire on their car. One suffered a gunshot wound to the hand and the other was hit in the head by shrapnel.