Vice closes on blitzed Baghdad

US forces tightened their grip on central Baghdad yesterday, advancing street by street and blitzing targets with planes and tanks as Iraqi defenders fought an unequal battle with anti-tank weapons and rifles.

Consolidating the US stranglehold on the city of 5 million people, Marines captured the Rashid air base in the southeast, three miles (five km) from the center.

The US military said it did not know whether an air strike on a building in a wealthy district of Baghdad on Monday had killed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but added his grasp on the nation of 26 million was fast disintegrating.

"We are sitting in the centre of the city with almost an armor brigade right now, which is extraordinary," Major General Stanley McChrystal told a Pentagon briefing.

"The end game is the end of the regime, and that's much closer than people thought it was," added McChrystal, vice director for operations on the US military's Joint Staff.

He said the US had no "hard battle damage assessment" on who was killed in the airstrike on a residential district aimed at Saddam, but called it very effective.

Aircraft, tanks and artillery pounded the nerve center of Saddam's administration in a thundering raid in central Baghdad that began at dawn, meeting only scattered Iraqi resistance in what appeared to be the final battle for Saddam's capital.

Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire said US Marines moved street by street through east Baghdad, meeting small arms fire from Iraqi irregulars but greetings of welcome from some residents. "Thank you, Mr Bush," cried one woman in black.

US officers said the Marines were trying to link up with forces from the US 3rd Infantry Division, currently in north Baghdad to the west of the Tigris river.

"A vice is closing in on this regime, and as the vice closes their time is running out," said Lt. Mark Kitchens.

General McChrystal said that although the city was effectively isolated, elite Iraqi troops still posed a threat.

"The Special Republican Guard we believe still exists, we believe it is still operating inside Baghdad, we believe that it has great potential for some sharp fights," he said.

US special forces in the north of Iraq were preventing Iraqi troops moving south toward Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace, or toward Baghdad, and the Pentagon said air strikes continued on Iraqi military forces in the north.

Two Abrams tanks rolled onto the capital's Jumhuriya bridge over the Tigris in a show of muscle to cow forces - Republican Guards and paramilitary Fedayeen - still loyal to President Saddam.

But Iraq's information minister said Iraqi forces would "tackle and destroy" the invaders. "They are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told reporters at the Palestine Hotel.

Ambulances raced through the streets, ferrying casualties to already overwhelmed hospitals. Aid agencies said the hospitals were running low on life-saving medicines as civilian casualties mounted.

As the 20-day-old war to topple President Saddam neared its climax, US President George W. Bush met his British ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair, to discuss the post-war future of Iraq.

"We will move as quickly as possible to place governmental responsibilities under the control of an interim authority composed of Iraqis from both inside and outside the country," Bush said after the summit in Northern Ireland.

"The interim authority will serve until a permanent government can be chosen by the Iraqi people."

Blair said Bush had agreed there would be a "vital role" for the United Nations in Iraqi reconstruction. Bush and Blair hope their vision for after the war will appease widespread international suspicion of US motives in Iraq.

French President Jacques Chirac said the United Nations alone should take charge of rebuilding Iraq after the war.

"The reconstruction ... of Iraq is a matter for the United Nations and it alone," Chirac said in Paris.

Moscow announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder - key opponents of the war - would meet in St Petersburg at the weekend.

In Baghdad, talk of reconstruction seemed remote. Smoke and flames poured from government ministries and buildings pounded by US planes, tanks and artillery.

An Iraqi missile shot down an A-10 Warthog ground attack plane in action near Baghdad international airport, which is held by the Americans. The pilot was rescued.

A spokesman in Kuwait said a US-led civil administration would start work in Iraq yesterday when a team of about 20 officials deploys in the southern port of Umm Qasr.

The mission of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is to provide humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing Iraq and pave the way for the creation of an interim Iraqi government.

ORHA is headed by retired US Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who will report to US war commander Gen. Tommy Franks.

A British military spokesman said a tribal leader would help form a new leadership in Iraq's southern province after British forces seized Basra, Iraq's second city, on Monday.