US commanders and political leaders spoke with a single voice Wednesday, warning that the televised scenes of celebration and gratitude in Baghdad Wednesday should not obscure the fact that more hard fighting lies ahead.

"There is a lot of fighting that's left," US Defense Secrertary Donald Rumsfeld said.

"The task is to see that that regime is not there. There is a good portion of the country where that has been achieved, but there's a good portion of the country where that has not been achieved."

A stark reminder that not everyone in Baghdad is pleased to see US troops in the city came early Thursday when US marines were attacked by Saddam Hussein loyalists along the northern banks of the Tigris river. One marine died and 13 were wounded in the exchage.

"There are small pockets of resistance and we'll continue to root them out," Major Mike Birmingham of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division told AFP from Baghdad airport, an installation that has been firmly in US hands since the week end.

"There's a lot of abandoned equipment out there being found. Where we find it we destroy it."

In addition to the airport in the southwest, US forces control of much of western Baghdad but still face the threat of sniper fire there, along with stiffer resistance around bridges in southern districts of the city.

A tough challenge lies in the north where coalition-backed Kurdish forces are pushing towards the government-controlled oil center of Kirkuk, which along with another northern city, Mosul, are still in the hands of forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.

A BBC correspondent in Kirkuk reported that the city appeared to have fallen but the information could not be confirmed by military sources.

Kurdish units on Thursday seized the towns of Makhmur and Altun Kubri in their drive toward Kirkuk, a senior Kurdish security source said.

A Kurdish commander, General Hamid Rahim Rostam, has predicted this week that his forces would take Kirkuk with ease on Thursday or Friday.

"It will all be over within the next two days. I think we will enter Kirkuk peacefully, without a fight," said General Hamid Rahim Rostam on Wednesday.

But Kurdish successes could confront the coalition with a nasty problem, as Turkey -- a critical US regional ally with a restive Kurdish minority -- fears the emergence of an independent Kurdistan.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned this week that Iraqi Kurdish control of Mosul and Kirkuk would constitute grounds for Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq.

Another potential flashpoint in the north is Tikrit, a Saddam Hussein stronghold and potent symbol of his 24-year-old rule that could be the site of his regime's last stand.

US warplanes have struck Iraqi positions around the town, where according to US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks "there are any number of command and control related facilites."

"Tikrit has not escaped our interest, nor has it escaped our targeting," he said, adding that the aim was to apply "pressure on the Iraqi forces in that area while preventing their movement to Tikrit or Baghdad."

In Basra, Iraq's principal southern metropolis, the task confronting the coalition is to impose law and order as traditional authority unravels and bitter scores -- left over from Baath Party rule -- are being settled.

While British forces may have smashed the party's influence they must now contend with a city sinking into chaos, with rampant looting, murders and petty crime.

Initially welcomed by the population when they reached the center of Basra on Monday, the troops risk losing the affection of the people unless order can be restored.

"We're getting patients who were hurt in the looting, stabbed by their neighbors, hit by bullets in squabbles between members of (Saddam's) Baath Party and their rivals," said Muayad Jumah Lefta, a doctor at the city's largest hospital.

"The British are responsible for this," he seethed.

SPACE.WIRE