TIKRIT,
Iraq, April 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As U.S. troops
said they were encountering little resistance around the key Iraqi town
of Tikrit Sunday, April 13, U.S. Marines were fighting Iraqi forces,
including tanks, on the southern outskirts of Saddam Hussein's home
town, a Canadian journalist with the U.S. forces told CNN.
"They
(the Americans) launched their attack about an hour and a half
ago," Matthew Fisher of Canada's National Post
newspaper told the channel in a live telephone call from Tikrit.
"It's
a very, very significant attack. They've brought forward a great number
of Cobra assault helicopters and there are Marine F-18s (aircraft)
overhead," he added.
This
came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that
supporters of Saddam have fled the town and getting help from the
population there, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Apparently
an awful lot of the people there have fled, and there are people who do
not have an awful lot of admiration for the Baathist regime who are
there who are helping," Rumsfeld said in an interview with NBC
television.
Asked
whether U.S. forces were meeting resistance, Rumsfeld said, "Very
little."
The
tribal leaders in Tikrit reportedly offered to surrender the town if the
U.S. and British bombardment stopped on Saturday, April 12, but they
received no response; except for intensive military attacks by the U.S.
marines.
"After
these U.S. assaults on the city, the people here vowed to defend it
against the invading forces," Al-Jazeera
correspondent in the area said, adding the resistance come from the
remnants of the Republican Guard units.
The
Qatar-based channel quoted former Iraqi military intelligence chief
Rafiq al-Samra'i as saying that there are no trace of Republican Guards
in the area, unless "they would have used some 200 tanks and
armored vehicles in the ferocious fighting against the U.S. forces
there."
No
militia or Iraqi troops could be seen in the center of Tikrit, only a
number of armed and extremely agitated residents, who said they wanted
to prevent the looting that has occurred in every Iraqi city abandoned
to U.S.-led forces by forces loyal to Saddam.
"No
Shiites, Kurds"
The
residents, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades, said they
would surrender to U.S. forces, being led by the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force, if these were not accompanied by Iraqi opponents of
Saddam's regime, notably Shiites and Kurds.
"Task
Force Tripoli has moved north and is currently conducting operations in
the vicinity of Tikrit," U.S. Captain Frank Thorp said at Central
Command in Qatar. "It is a significant force with significant
firepower."
Tikrit,
Saddam's traditional power base, lies about 180 kilometers (115 miles)
north of Baghdad and is considered the last major city not under control
of the coalition forces.
The
area had been the target of more than a week of intense bombing, but it
was not clear when U.S. forces would seek to enter the city.
Tikrit
and other parts of the north between Baghdad and Kirkuk, where remnants
of Iraqi forces were resisting, are now the main target of the U.S-led
forces, according to officials at the U.S. war command center.
The
road into Tikrit from the northern city of Mosul was open Sunday, but
had not been secured by the invading forces.
CNN
television, whose reporters were shot at Sunday as they drove though a
checkpoint on the edge of Tikrit, showed pictures of abandoned barracks
of the Republican Guard outside the city.
