Tikrit museum was the first to go down by U.S. missiles and bombs

TIKRIT, Iraq, April 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. Marines were operating near the key Iraqi town of Tikrit Sunday, April 13, Captain Frank Thorp said at U.S. Central Command war headquarters in Qatar.

"Task Force Tripoli has moved north (from Baghdad) and is currently conducting operations in the vicinity of Tikrit," Thorp said at Camp As-Saliyah.

He told journalists the force was made up of elements of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

As U.S. forces headed toward Saddam Hussein's traditional power base of northern Tikrit, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent saw armed men roaming the streets, reportedly saying they were ready to surrender to occupation forces.

There were no regular Iraqi soldiers on the streets of the last major Iraqi city not controlled by U.S. forces, but tensions were running high as residents toted Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades.

They told AFP they were ready to surrender to U.S. forces, but only if Iraqi opponents of Saddam's brutal regime did not accompany them.

The streets of Tikrit, the Iraqi's president hometown and historic stronghold, were nearly deserted Sunday, with no occupation or Iraqi forces in sight, according to an AFP correspondent in the city center.

Earlier, a team of journalists from the CNN news network twice came under fire from unidentified gunmen, once as they passed through a checkpoint and a second time as they raced out of town, in a dramatic scene seen live.

The firefight seemed to indicate that Tikrit, a city of 100,000 people, was still under the control of Saddam's regime, on day 25 of the U.S.-led Iraq invasion to oust him and strip Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Gleaming, Modern City

Once a dusty farming town, Tikrit was transformed into a gleaming modern city with ornate palaces and mosques, and opulent villas for his trusted aides, after Saddam's Baath party took power in 1968.

The fall of the city to U.S.-led forces would mark a significant step towards the end of the conflict, with every other major city in the country already in “coalition” hands.

But lawlessness and looting plagued much of the country, stoking a sense of insecurity in the capital Baghdad, the northern oil-rich towns of Kirkuk and Mosul, and Basra in the south.

U.S. forces, facing mounting anger among Baghdadis for failing to stem days of rampant looting since their takeover of the capital on Wednesday, set up an operations center in the city center to recruit Iraqi workers for key sectors.

“We want workers, not only senior officials," said Gunnery Sergeant Claudia Lamantia, of the First Marines Expeditionary Force. "The idea obviously is to get everything back running."

Baghdad, which has five million residents, has been without electricity for about 10 days, and most homes are also without running water and telephone services. Public transportation is non-existent in the capital.

Volunteers were out in force Sunday to remove the corpses of those killed in fighting between U.S. troops and Iraqis, AFP reporters said. Bodies were left in cars or on the pavement after firefights.

Marine Killed

U.S. marines approaching Tikrit

The unstable security situation in the capital was highlighted by the killing of a U.S. Marine at a checkpoint near a medical clinic Saturday, in an attack blamed on a volunteer fighter from neighboring Syria.

A total of 110 U.S. troops have been killed in the Iraq war so far, according to the latest Pentagon toll. It was not immediately clear if the figure included the dead marine.

U.S. military commanders meanwhile set their sights on Tikrit and the surrounding area, with Major Rumi Nielson-Green emphasizing that the city was only one of several U.S.-led forces were targeting.

"A lot of populated areas still have a regime presence," she said of northern Iraq, notably citing the city of Baiji, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Tikrit.

"We will work on those until they fall," added Nielson-Green, speaking at US Central Command's forward operating base in Qatar.

U.S. war planes have been pounding Iraqi positions in the Tikrit area for more than a week, trying to wear down the remnants of Iraq's elite Republican Guard, the country's most formidable and most loyal forces.

Nielson-Green declined to comment on reports that U.S.-led forces were negotiating a surrender of the city, where most public buildings have been destroyed by the heavy bombing.

In Tikrit, the armed residents asked journalists to pass on the message that they would not resist, but adamantly demanded that they would not accept members of the opposition, notably Kurds and Shiites.

In the main northern city of Mosul, a move to co-opt the existing police force sparked an angry reaction from Kurdish residents, who greeted the collapse of Saddam's government with jubilation.

"All of these officers are traitors, supporters of Saddam and the Baath party," one protestor screamed, accusing a police officer recruited by U.S. forces of murdering two of his brothers.

Since Kurdish rebel fighters entered Mosul Friday, the city of 1.5 million people has been rocked by ethnic violence between the Kurds and Arab residents which hospital officials say has killed as many as 20 people.

In the northern oil capital of Kirkuk, U.S. troops were deployed outside the governor's office, in a sign they were steadily taking over control of the city from Kurdish forces as demanded by neighboring Turkey.

General "Mam" Rostam, a top commander of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said the city was quieter after it too was looted following its fall to his fighters on