US troops tightened their grip on the heart of Baghdad overnight as celebrations continued in the Iraqi capital after Saddam Hussein's harsh 24-year reign effectively came to an end.
The night skies over Baghdad fell quiet for the first time since the war began three weeks ago, but US warplanes pounded Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and tribal power base, 110 miles north of the capital.
There was also fighting between Saddam loyalists and Kurds further north around Mosul but Republican guard soldiers fled from their mountain defences marking the biggest coalition victory yet in the north.
Television pictures of Iraqis trampling the shattered 20-foot statue of Saddam in Ferdoos Square, dragging its decapitated metal head through the streets in a display of contempt for the man who led the country into three ruinous wars resulting in massive human losses and economic damage.
Crowds swarmed over the shattered statue and people danced for joy, waving their arms and fists in the air.
The celebrations, interspersed with anarchic scenes of looting in the capital, came three weeks after President Bush began the war to oust Saddam and seize control of Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction.
As the shadow of Saddam's rule dissolved and his authority collapsed, Iraqis who had lived in fear were suddenly free to express their feelings. But US control over Baghdad is not total.
The city's streets emptied as night fell and tank and artillery fire boomed on the western bank of the Tigris River.
There is no reliable word on the fate of Saddam or his sons, Uday and Qusay, targeted by US bombs in a western residential area of the city on Monday. American officials say they still do not know if the Iraqi leader survived the attack, but rumors abounded he was dead, wounded or alive and fleeing to Syria.
Russia denied reports Saddam was hiding in its embassy compound in Baghdad and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to squash speculation Saddam had fled to Syria.
There were "intelligence scraps" that Saddam family members and supporters were fleeing in the direction of Syria, but they were not "very senior, senior people," US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said through a spokesman, "We are all, as you would expect, watching these images along with the rest of the country and we are delighted at what we are seeing."
The most triumphant note came from Mr Rumsfeld, a key architect of the war.
"Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom," he declared.
Iraqi National Congress leader Mr Ahmad Chalabi, seen as a possible new leader in Iraq, said a meeting of US and Iraqi officials would take place on Saturday at an air base outside Nassiriya, to begin planning for an interim government. But he criticized the United States for failing to immediately bolster security and ease humanitarian conditions in Iraq.
Washington plans to install a civil administration under retired US Gen Jay Garner to prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government run by the Iraqis.
"Where is General Garner now?" Mr Chalabi said in an interview with CNN. "People are hungry, their supplies are going to run out. Why are they not here? Why are they in Kuwait?"
Agencies