"What you're seeing as celebration in the streets is a recognition that the regime is gone and will not return again," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters at US Central Command's forward planning base.

But Brooks elsewhere in his remarks struck a note of caution, saying that while a turning point of sorts may have been reached, the military campaign was not at an end.

The 24-year-old rule of Saddam Hussein "is more out of control today than it has been before," he said.

"I think that we are at a degree of a tipping point, where for the population there's a broader recognition that this regime is coming to an end and will not return to the way it has been in the past."

But he added that "militarily ... we proceed on a plan that says there's more to follow."

"All of the regime is not gone, there's still regime appendages in a variety of places, there's still capability, there's still also a potential intent to use weapons of mass destruction.

"All of these hazards have not been eliminated."

US military analysts here, heartened by televised images of jubilant Iraqis greeting US forces as they moved into parts of Baghdad, warned of determined "pockets" of Saddam Hussein loyalists -- notably in the Special Republican Guard -- that can be expected to fight on.

On Wednesday, for example, dozens of Iraqi and Arab fighters in civilian clothing mobilized behind buildings or sandbagged positions with the aim of stopping US tanks crossing Al-Jumhurya bridge to the eastern bank of the city.

A Central Command spokesman, Navy Captain Frank Thorp, predicted a continuation of "fierce, sporadic fighting" in the capital.

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