Infantry heads north for the last act in fall of Saddam

Anglo-American forces will not be able to declare victory over Saddam Hussein until they capture his home city. Tikrit, 100 miles north of Baghdad, may be where his regime makes its last stand.

After a delay of several weeks and a detour of several thousand miles, the US 4th Infantry Division has begun to move across Iraq towards Tikrit, which stands on low bluffs overlooking the Tigris river. The capture of the city is likely to be the final act in President Saddam's downfall, but achieving it may take some time. Though US special forces are said to have blocked the road from Baghdad to Tikrit, President Saddam and members of his inner circle might have escaped there from the capital. Turkey's refusal to allow American troops on its soil means the US does not have as much force as it would like north of Baghdad.

In the Pentagon's original plan, the 4th Infantry Division would have invaded Iraq from Turkey, threatening Tikrit, and the Republican Guard forces protecting it, from the north. The fall of the regime's spiritual home, even before the Americans reached Baghdad, would have been a huge psychological blow: the longer President Saddam has been in power, the more he has surrounded himself with family and clan members from Tikrit.

An invasion from the north might also have deterred the Iraqi authorities from withdrawing forces north of Baghdad to fight the advance from the south, although the rapid incursion of US troops into the capital shows the Republican Guard is putting up much less of a fight than expected. How many forces remain in Tikrit is not known. Some brigades of the Adnan division of the Republican Guard are still believed to be in the city.

To get there, the 4th Infantry Division has had to send the 40 ships carrying its armour and helicopters through the Suez canal and around the Arabian peninsula to Kuwait, where they are being unloaded as quickly as possible. The division's 21,000 troops have been flown in from their base in Texas, but the bulk of the force might not be able to move for another week. In an echo of the "rolling start" seen at the start of the war, elements of the division are likely to be sent north, bypassing Baghdad, as soon as they are ready.

Allied commanders are likely to wait several days more for the 4th Division to move into position: they do not have forces to spare from the battle for Baghdad. Nor would there be an option of using Kurdish peshmerga fighters to seize a city mainly inhabited by Sunni Muslim Arabs. For all their co-operation with Allied special forces, the Kurds would be unlikely to agree to such an operation in any case.

The symbolic importance of Tikrit, a decayed textile centre of some 250,000 people, is belied by its appearance, described as depressing by one visitor. When Saddam Hussein was born 65 years ago in the nearby village of al-Oja, Tikrit largely made its living by sending bargeloads of melons down the Tigris to Baghdad.

But the city was also the place where young, impoverished Sunni men came to join the Iraqi army, making it a useful political base for a would-be revolutionary like the young Saddam. The Sunni families in and around Tikrit form the bedrock of his support, filling important positions in the army, the security apparatus and the Baath party.

President Saddam built one of his biggest and most lavish palaces in Tikrit, and gave the inhabitants a stadium in which to celebrate his birthday, a national holiday in Iraq. But even in his birthplace, little more of his wealth trickled down to ordinary Iraqis. "The street signs might be better painted, and the roads a little better paved, but it was by no means as grand as one might have expected," one visitor said.

Tikrit will not be easy to defend. It is surrounded by desert, giving American forces ease of manoeuvre, and is bisected by wide avenues. Even if the Republican Guard shows stomach for a fight, it will be opposed by one of the most hi-tech units in the American army.

Its capitulation could still take a few days more, but the taking of Tikrit is likely to be the final act in the downfall of Saddam Hussein.