LONDON, 10 April 2003 — Anglo-American forces will not be able to declare victory over Saddam Hussein until they capture his home town. 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 finally begun to move across Iraq toward Tikrit, which stands on low bluffs overlooking the Tigris. The fall of the town is likely to be the final act in President Saddam’s downfall, but achieving it may take some time.

Though American special forces are said to have blocked the road from Baghdad to Tikrit, it is possible that President Saddam and members of his inner circle 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 to the 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 an immense 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 authorities from withdrawing forces stationed north of Baghdad to fight the advance from the south, although the rapid incursion of American troops into the capital shows the Republican Guard are putting up much less of a fight than expected. It is not known how many forces remain in Tikrit, though some brigades of the Adnan division of the Republican Guard are still believed to be in the town.

To get there, however, the 4th Infantry Division has had to send the 40 ships carrying its armour and helicopters through the Suez Canal and round 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 it could be another week before the bulk of the force is able to move. In an echo of the “rolling start” seen at the beginning of the war, elements of the division are likely to be sent north, bypassing Baghdad, as soon as they are ready.

It may be several days more before the 4th Division can get into position, but commanders are likely to wait: They do not have forces to spare from the battle for Baghdad. Nor would it be an option to use Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to seize a town mainly inhabited by Sunni Muslim Arabs. For all their cooperation with American and British special forces, the Kurds would be unlikely to agree to such an operation in any case.

The symbolic importance of Tikrit, a decayed textile center 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 made its living by sending bargeloads of melons down the Tigris to Baghdad.

But the town 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. 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 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,” said a visitor.

Nor will Tikrit 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 high-tech units in the US Army. Its fall could take a few days more, but the taking of Tikrit is likely to be the last act in the fall of Saddam Hussein.