Military briefings: Key points

Military briefings: Key points

The BBC's defence correspondent Paul Adams, at US Central Command in Qatar, takes stock of coalition strategy and tactics:

Baghdad

• Gun battles in north-central Baghdad this morning proved there are still people determined to hold out. A US spokeswoman said the marines took action in response to information that "regime leadership was trying to reorganise".

• There has also been fighting in the east, in and around the university. Brigadier General Vince Brooks says Baghdad is still "an ugly place".

• Reports on Thursday bear out Wednesday's words of caution that military business in Baghdad is far from over.

• The US troop presence in and around the city has probably reached around 20,000 men - mostly a mixture of 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

• The strike on the al-Mansur district three days ago: US special operations personnel have gone to look at the rubble, to see if they can figure out who was killed there. Officials in Doha now acknowledge privately that Saddam Hussein was probably not killed.

Kirkuk and the north

• Despite various bland official statements, a senior US official has admitted privately that the Kurds jumped the gun this morning with their move into Kirkuk.

  In other words, this was not properly co-ordinated with US special forces. The same official did not seem to think the situation was irretrievable, but evidence of high-level diplomatic efforts involving Turkey suggest that Washington is scrambling to keep up with events.

• Elements of the US 10th Mountain Division are now deploying to the north, to supplement existing special forces and paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

• The "green line" separating Kurdish-controlled territory from the rest of Iraq is now extremely fluid, with movement at various places. The town of Khanaqin has also been taken.

• Human Rights Watch warned a couple of weeks ago that the Kirkuk area (ethnically cleansed of 120,000 Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians since 1991) was "a disaster waiting to happen". Without a plan for the orderly return of displaced people, the group warned of the possibility of widespread reprisals and killings.

• Elsewhere in the north, there is little or no evidence of "command and control" and lots of desertions.

Tikrit

• The Americans do not appear to be in too much of a hurry. It is being hammered from the air, but, depending on events in Baghdad, it may fall to the 4th Infantry Division - which should have gone to northern Iraq, according to the original US plan - to deal with the town. The division has been unloading and getting ready in Kuwait for some days. It would probably take four-five days for them to move up there. But if Baghdad is dealt with quickly, it is still possible that elements of 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force will be despatched to the north instead.

• Officials in Doha admit Tikrit could be a tough nut, with a population loyal - for tribal reasons - to Saddam Hussein.

Al-Qaim and the Syrian connection

• US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has delivered a couple of less-than-subtle warnings to Syria, not to facilitate the shipment of military equipment to Iraq and not to allow any weapons of mass destruction materials to be spirited out.

• The British are coy about this, saying there is some intelligence, but not really committing to it. Mr Rumsfeld, after all, is prone to shoot from the hip.

• The border town of al-Qaim remains "an area of interest", where there has been some "gritty, determined fighting" involving coalition special forces. But it is not entirely clear what this is all about.