IRAQ-CONFLICT: US forces take Tikrit, resistance less than expected

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Att.Editors: The following item is from the Qatar News Agency (QNA)

DOHA, Apr 14 2003 (IPS) - US forces met with less resistance than expected when they took over Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Monday, a US military spokesman said.

Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks told a news briefing at US Central Command in Qatar that the exchanges of fire in Tikrit was the only fighting reported in Iraq over a 24-hour period.

Brooks said these developments enabled coalition forces to concentrate on creating the conditions to achieve a stable Iraq in the long term.

The spokesman said that life was slowly returning to normal in many parts of Iraq and that groups headed by local leaders were being formed to take care of law and order.

Brooks said that coalition forces now controlled all of Iraq’s oil fields.

He said the main military objective – ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein’s regime – had been accomplished. But he warned that fighting would continue at a local level for some time to come.

Earlier, US tanks and troops were reported to have taken up position in the main square of Tikrit early Monday after a brief battle with Iraqi forces.

Residents told the Arab television channel Al-Jazeera that Republican Guard units stationed in the city had pulled out five days before the coalition forces moved in.

Meanwhile, the US military confirmed on Monday that Saddam Hussein’s half brother, one of 55 people on a US most-wanted list, had been captured.

"We can confirm that Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti is in coalition custody," US Central Command spokesman Captain Frank Thorp told reporters at war headquarters in Qatar.

Anonymous US officials said on Sunday Watban was captured near the Syrian border and turned over to the US military, but Thorp gave no details of how he was taken into custody.

Watban is Saddam’s half brother from his mother’s second marriage. On a US most-wanted list of Iraqi leadership to be captured or killed he is number 51.

Saddam removed him as interior minister in 1995 but he remained a presidential adviser.