COALITION commanders were optimistic yesterday the battle for Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, Tikrit, could be won quickly.

Unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft have flown over the last big Iraqi city not under coalition control and revealed few defences and no sign of the Adnan Republican Guard Division or regular army troops.

Those left may not have much fight in them, said Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, a coalition forces spokesman at Central Command in Qatar.

“We know there is still military equipment in Tikrit area off to the west and in the east,” he said. “It may be there is not much fight left but some of the recent operations indicate there is still fighting to do.”

Relentless airstrikes over the past three weeks have rendered units in the area “ineffective”, say the coalition. Ministry of Defence sources predict there will be just sporadic fighting.

In the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and US special forces based in Kirkuk were yesterday moving towards Tikrit and were about 50 miles outside Saddam’s stronghold.

Two bridges on roads into Tikrit have been destroyed to prevent coalition and peshmerga forces approaching the city of 250,000.

Small groups of American special forces who have overseen bombing raids across the northern front in the past 10 days have dug in at Samara to the south and Beji to the north of Tikrit waiting to advance.

In the past 48 hours special forces have carried out attacks in and around the city, which has been cut off from Baghdad for more than a week.

“The coalition forces are standing, not moving forwards and not bombing because we are waiting for the coalition forces to come up from Baghdad,” said Ashti Anwar, 23, a fighter with the forces of the Kurdish Democratic party.

Units from the 4th Infantry “Iron Horse” Division have crossed from Kuwait and commanders hope they will be in position around Saddam’s home town tomorrow. However, some commanders feel they may not be needed.

Roads to the city have been infected by the looting and lawlessness that replaced the euphoria at Saddam’s demise. Villagers were yesterday sniping at cars on the road from Kirkuk to Tikrit, fearful of looters.

A Centcom military source said: “We expect any remnants of the regime in the city to fade away once the significance of events in Baghdad have sunk in. It is not going to go down in history as a great last stand.”

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