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Fall of Saddam's last bastion imminent

20 die in battles; Syrian fighter kills US marine in Baghdad

STAR DESK
US marines entered Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit yesterday, signalling the imminent fall of the last major bastion of his loyalists.
About 20 people were killed in running battles between US-allied Iraqi Kurds and Arab tribes loyal to Saddam, Kurdish fighters and tribal leaders in northern Iraq said yesterday.
Most fighting has been around the town of Huwaija, on the road between the Iraqi oil centre of Kirkuk,
which US-backed Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters overran last week, and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
The Kurdish advance ushered in a wave of looting in ethnically divided Kirkuk, which Arab tribal leaders said had spread to the fringes of their villages on the road to Tikrit.
During their push toward Saddam's northern power base, the last major centre yet to fall to the invaders, the marines rescued seven missing US soldiers all of whom
appeared in relatively good health.
Prior to the marines' arrival in Tikrit, live footage aired by CNN showed no signs of active Iraqi army defences on Tikrit's northern outskirts and suggested that intensive US airstrikes had taken a heavy toll on the desert city's military forces.
CNN vehicles came under smallarms fire as they tried to enter the city centre. A CNN security guard returned fire at least twice, and the news crew quickly drove away.
Two members of the CNN party were lightly injured, according to Eli
Flournoy, CNN's senior international assignment editor.
A US marine was shot and killed at a Baghdad checkpoint Saturday by a man carrying a Syrian identifcation card, US central command has said.
The marine was guarding a medical facility when two men, posing as landscape workers, approached him, officials said.
One man shot and killed the marine. Marines nearby shot and killed the Syrian man, while the second attacker fled the scene.
SEE PAGE 11 COL 3 FROM PAGE 1
Coalition forces yesterday captured Saddam's half-brother Watban as he attempted to cross the border into Syria, Kurdish TV said.
Three Malaysian journalists covering the war in Iraq were kidnapped by a group of armed men in Baghdad, reports AFP.
A reporter, a photographer and a camera crew member of the Joint Media Team Malaysia (JMTM) were kidnapped Saturday morning.
Looting Frenzy
Looters in Baghdad set their sights yesterday on the symbols of Saddam's dying regime, swarming another palace overlooking the Tigris River to nab bone china with the Iraqi eagle insignia, fancy wash basins and bath tubs, and even fish from the garden pond.
Storming the Al-Salam Presidential Palace on the river's western bank, the looters marvelled bitterly at Saddam's life of luxury as they passed shards of crystal from chandeliers and shattered mirrors.
Sporadic bursts of gunfire could be heard on the palace grounds.
The looters, including women in black chadors and young children, hauled away statuary from the manicured lawns and stripped white marble off the walls. Some tried to carry away massive gilded doors.
They tossed hand grenades in the ponds, causing dead fish to float up to the surface, and walked away with nylon bags full of piscine booty.
Demonstrators gathered yesterday morning to call for an end to the looting.
Presidential palaces, government
ministries and the Iraq National Museum -- the repository of the nation's cultural heritage -- have been stripped bare.
Elsewhere in the city, however, the convulsions of anarchy appeared to be petering out.
People felt secure enough to come out of their homes and drive around, causing the late morning traffic jams so common to the capital. Buses started running in the centre of town.
Children ventured out to play soccer. Shops began to open and street vendors hawked vegetables loaded onto donkey carts.
Hundreds of cars loaded with personal belongings were entering Baghdad from the city' s western approaches, an indication that people who fled the fighting were coming home.
But anger still simmered at US troops for allowing four straight days of pillaging.
A new graffiti, scrawled in English, appeared on a Baghdad wall: "Bush supports looters."
Outside the Palestine Hotel, where foreign journalists are staying, a crowd of at least 60 people vented their anger at the Americans. They carried banners that read: "Bush Down," "American Forces must leave immediately" and "Bush + Saddam One."
In the western suburbs of the capital, a plume of black smoke streaked up into the sky. Whole families, including women and children, used donkey carts to haul off toilets, sinks and bathtubs from a warehouse in the Abu Ghreib
district.
Although public transport resumed, some double-decker buses were taken over by looters for ferrying their booty back home.
US troops set up barricades to search vehicles and passengers coming in and out of the western part of the city.
Grenade Launchers Seized In Basra
British forces in Basra have seized 250 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons believed to have been stored for use by suicide bombers, the Associated Press has reported.
Meanwhile, along the Iraq-Iran border, UK forces flooded the lawless region amid reports of chemical weapons caches and underground chambers where prisoners from the 1991 Gulf War were being held.
Soldiers seized 250 rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the northern part of Basra on Friday, Major Neil Robertshaw, of 10 Transport Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, said.
In Baghdad, marines uncovered a cache of 310 suicide-bomb vests, at least 160 of them packed with explosives and ball bearings, in an elementary school, US central command reported.
Baghdad Hospitals Crippled
A lack of water and power is crippling Baghdad hospitals struggling to treat the sick and wounded, the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.
Medical equipment is also in short supply after looters cleaned out government warehouses, ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said in Geneva, adding that US forces had to step up security at big hospitals before health care can improve.
"Now the idea is to safeguard whatever has been left and second to ensure security and safety for the medical personnel to come back to the hospitals," the Swiss-based humanitarian agency's spokeswoman said.
"But I must say a lot of them have stayed in the hospitals to prevent further looting. My colleagues are saying the Iraqi doctors are doing a great job."
Mobs ransacked many of Baghdad's hospitals, prompting the ICRC to remind US-led forces in Iraq of their responsibilities under international law as an occupying power. These include protecting vital public services.
The Karama hospital in western Baghdad was still operating but had very few staff on hand. The Yarmouk hospital was damaged and looted, and the Kindi facility was totally ransacked.