IRAQ OCCUPATION

Independent: Americans Turn Tikrit Into Iraq's Own West Bank

It is the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but transported to Iraq. A town is imprisoned by razor wire. The entrance is guarded by soldiers, protected by sand bags, concrete barricades and a machine-gun nest.

Only those people with an identification card issued by the occupation authorities are allowed in or, more importantly, out.

"Hey, this is just like Gaza, isn't it?" a fiery-eyed young Iraqi policeman shouted at us from behind the chest-high, three-layer wire coils which separate his home from the rest of the surrounding dead-flat Iraqi landscape, Sunni Triangle heartland. "We're not happy. Not happy!"

This is Awja, the wealthy enclave outside Tikrit where Saddam Hussein grew up. It has long been a centre of pro-Saddam, anti-American sentiments, home to the ousted dictator's closest tribesmen, his cronies and his relatives. The United States military says it is also the source of persistent violent insurgency.

The Americans, accompanied by selected journalists and cameramen, have been conducting dozens of operations in the past few days, mounting house-to-house raids, and firing off several 500lb satellite-guided missiles in an effort to show the world and the guerrillas that they are now getting tough.

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