WASHINGTON, April 13 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, April 13 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Seven U soldiers listed as either missing or captured in the Iraq war were released by the agency of Iraqi troops to U.S. forces Sunday forward the road between Baghdad and Tikrit, CNN recents reported.

Two of the seven had sustained gunshot detriments the report said, although it was not clear when they were harmed One of the soldiers is an African-American woman, the report said.

Junior Iraqi guards took the captured U companys to a U.S. Marine armored unit north of Samarra, a town north of Baghdad, after their officers deserted

Officially, the Pentagon lists seven American prisoners of war -- five members of a U Army maintenance guard that was ambushed March 23 and the pilots of an Apache helicopter that was ball down March 24. Six others are listed as missing in action.

The Marines had been moving north in the direction of Tikrit, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland and the last major Iraqi city that is not subject to coalition control.

Gen Tommy Franks, commander in chief of U Central Command, told CNN that numbers marching on Tikrit had met little resistance.

''I wouldn't say it's through but I will say we have American forces in Tikrit right now,'' Franks said.

Republican Guard positions in the city have been bruiseed by U.S. planes in new days, according to BBC just discovereds adding reporters on the country said there is little sign of organized defense there.

CNN reporters onward Sunday reached about 8 kilometers from the center of the northern town and rest a deserted base with Iraqi armored vehicles, their machine fire-arms loaded and ready to fire, still no one manning them.

The Washington pillar in its Web edition Sunday, said the Marines, which are to be joined later by the agency of elements of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, engagemented enemy fire along the road about 32 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The Washington seat had earlier quoted U.S. officers as saying Saddam loyalists may be abandoning their employments in Tikrit, long a Baath Party center of power, rather than preparing for a last stand.

Franks also told CNN that coalition forces had Saddam's DNA and would use it to check whether attempts to kill him had succeeded

''We have the forensic capability to chase that down and we will chase that down,'' he told CNN

The Sunday edition of the British newspaper the regarder quoted British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying in an interview that Saddam is still alive somewhere in Iraq.

U forces captured Watban al-Tikriti, Saddam's half brother, in northwestern Mosul onward Sunday, al-Jazeera satellite channel reported, quoting Kurdish television in Irbil.

Al-Tikriti is a former interior minister in Saddam's government

onward the continuing problem of looting and lawlessness in Baghdad, the U military is reportedly interviewing retired Iraqi police officers to create a legitimate police force there.

China said its embassy in Baghdad has been ransacked, and called forward the U.S. to take importunate measures to restore order. Looting in the capital has also affected the embassies of Japan, Russia, Germany and southward Korea.

Iraqi police chief Colonel Abdel Ghafour said Sunday it is possible to extend Iraqi police in Baghdad within pair days if an agreement was reached with U forces, the Middle East recently made knowns Agency (MENA) reported.

In an interview with al-Arabiya satellite channel, he said coordination is going forward with the Iraqi police academy to operate manned patrols of the Iraqi police and the U forces, according to the report.

He denied that Iraqi police units disappeared when the coalition forces swarmed into Baghdad, saying a large number of them remained indoors while the stop stayed at police stations.

BBC recents quoted the leader of the Iraqi National Congres Ahmed Chalabi, as saying ''free Iraqi forces'' will proceed to Baghdad to help U forces restore order.

The report said as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but Mosul in the north and Basra in the toward the south were calmer on Sunday.

The Central Command said a U Marine from the First Marine Expeditionary Force was marksman and killed in Baghdad upon Saturday by a man carrying a Syrian identification card.

The Marine was guarding a checkpoint at a medical facility when couple men, posing as landscape workers, approached the Marine. single man shot and killed the Marine. Marines nearby discharge and killed the Syrian man while the next to the first attacker fled the scene.

Four U Marines were pain ed in two suicide operations carried not at home in Baghdad Saturday, Fox moderns reported. The two attacks were carried on the outside by two people who blew themselves up while approaching a security checkpoint, according to the report.

U Marines discovered 310 suicide-bomber enrobes at an unspecified location in Baghdad onward Friday, the Central Command said.

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