Tikrit may witness last stand

Tikrit may witness last stand

Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst

Tikrit forms the bedrock of Saddam Hussein's support

With the focus of the war in Iraq now mainly on Baghdad, little attention is being paid to Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, 160 kilometres (100 miles) to the north.

Some observers think it could be there, rather than in Baghdad, that Saddam Hussein or members of his family might choose to make their last stand.

It was in a village near Tikrit - a small town on the banks of the Tigris - that Saddam Hussein was born 65 years ago.

And it is the Sunni families in and around Tikrit that form the bedrock of his support, filling key posts in the army, the security apparatus and the ruling Baath Party.

Sumptuous palace

Under Saddam Hussein's rule, the town and its people have prospered.

Saddam Hussein's Tharthar palace in Tikrit - will he flee there?

No longer a provincial backwater, it now has big new mosques, wide modern roads, larger-than-life portraits of the Iraqi ruler and one of his biggest and most sumptuous palaces.

As he faces what looks like his last battle, there are only two places Saddam Hussein really cares about - Baghdad and Tikrit.

When the Americans drew close to the capital, they were quick to cut the road to Tikrit.

But even now they cannot be sure whether elements of the leadership - including, if they are alive, Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay - have slipped through the net.

And the leader's own whereabouts continue to be a mystery.

If Baghdad were to fall, surviving members of the family might regard Tikrit as a base from which to organise resistance to the American and British forces.