Five armoured vehicles were deployed in a main square of the town, 180 kilometres (115 miles) north of Baghdad, after marine reconnaissance battalions from Task Force Tripoli entered it before dawn, meeting no resistance, a sergeant said.

They posted themselves at the foot of a statue portraying Saddam mounted on a horse.

At US Central Command's (Centcom) forward headquarters in Qatar, officers said occasional resistance had been encountered on the outskirts of Tikrit. They declined to declare the city as being under full control of coalition forces.

"There are US troops in Tikrit right now. They have encountered some resistance, some occasional firefights," said US 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 US troops were getting "assistance from the Iraqi population" in Saddam's hometown.

Iraqi regular troops and much of Tikrit's 100,000-strong population deserted the city, although a handful of Tikritis emerged from their homes to catch a glimpse of the US troops. Stores remained closed.

At Centcom, British Group Captain Al Lockwood said: "We have very good hopes, we are almost there.

"As far as I am aware, Tikrit is the only pocket of resistance ... and so there is a very good chance that once Tikrit has fallen the war will have finished."

Marine Sergeant Robert Chute, who spoke to press in the symbolic city said: "My feeling is this means the end of the war."

"We didn't encounter any resistance in the city, but only on the outskirts last night. We had bad ambushes there."

Firefights with what Chute believed to be Iraqi soldiers had left at least one Iraqi dead, while US units reported no wounded or dead.

"I thought they were Iraqi soldiers because we found some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) there. We had no casualties," the sergeant said.

An official announcement of the fall of Tikrit would signal the symbolic end of Saddam's regime in the US-led war launched on March 20. Tikrit was the last major town not under the control of coalition forces.

US forces were not met with the sort of welcome seen in Baghdad last week, Chute said.

Resistance had been reduced by air and artillery strikes before the ground troops moved in, covered by Cobra helicopter gunships which made low-level passes over the city.

Fifteen tribal leaders had called Sunday for an end to US strikes on the city so a peaceful surrender of pro-Saddam militia there could be negotiated, one told AFP.

The city had benefited from its loyalty to Saddam and had some of the best hospitals, schools, and roads in Iraq.

Not far away is Ojeh, the village where Saddam was born on April 28, 1936.

It is the site of a richly-decorated mausoleum for Hussein al-Majid, Saddam's father, but under the previous regime Iraqis were not allowed to go there.

SPACE.WIRE