A few hours after Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit fell Monday, a senior Pentagon general said "major combat engagements" probably are over in the 26-day-old war.
As fighting wound down, Pentagon officials disclosed plans to pull two aircraft carriers from the Gulf region.
"I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over," Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at the Pentagon.
In Tikrit, "There was less resistance than we anticipated," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters. American forces captured a key Tigris River bridge in the heart of town and seized the presidential palace without a fight.
They set up checkpoints to keep prominent regime figures from leaving, and a line of armored vehicles was parked in front of a bazaar inside the city.
"We have had engagements, and we have defeated the enemy in every one of those engagements," said Capt. Frank Thorp, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command.
The operation inside Tikrit, Brooks added, "is really the only significant combat action that occurred within the last 24 hours." McChrystal told reporters, "I think we will move into a phase where it (combat) is smaller, albeit sharp fights."
A U.S. defense official said two of five aircraft carrier battlegroups in the region would soon be leaving, the USS Kitty Hawk returning to its base in Japan and the USS Constellation to San Diego. Each carrier has about 80 warplanes, including F/A-18 and F-14 strike aircraft as well as surveillance and other support craft.
The US Air Force already has sent four B-2 stealth bombers home.
Meanwhile, two soldiers with the Army's V Corps were killed and two wounded when a grenade exploded accidentally at a checkpoint south of Baghdad and a third soldier was killed and another wounded in an accidental shooting near Baghdad International Airport, Central Command said. (Albawaba.com)
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