"There are US troops in Tikrit right now. They have encountered some resistance, some ocasional firefight," said Lieutenant Herbert Josey.

"There are some regime forces that are still in the area and that haven't surrendered yet," he said, adding that US troops were there "in sufficient numbers."

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said earlier US troops were getting "assistance from the Iraqi population" in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown and last stronghold.

Centcom officials identified the US troops in Tikrit as members of Task Force Tripoli, composed of elements of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

"It is a significant force with significant firepower," Captain Frank Thorp said on Sunday.

The area around Tikrit had come under intense coalition bombing over the past week.

Centcom officials insisted Tikrit was only one of several targets of the US-British coalition. But its fall would mark the symbolic end of the war, launched on March 20.

Tikrit, 180 kilometres (115 miles) north of Baghdad, is Saddam's tribal power base and a stronghold of his minority Sunni Muslims who have ruled the nation's Shiite majority.

SPACE.WIRE