US military commanders said they suspected that some leaders had headed to Hussein's hometown of Tikrit for a final bloody showdown and that others had fled to Syria.

The Washington Post reported Thursday dogged fighting by Iraqi forces at Qaim, near the Syrian border, has led some US and British officials to suspect that Iraqi troops there may be protecting important Iraqi leaders or family members, although it was not clear who.

As Baghdad slipped from Hussein's control Wednesday, covert CIA and US special operations teams dedicated to killing or capturing the Iraqi president and senior leaders discovered that the Baath Party leaders, Republican Guard leaders, troops and high-level government officials they had targeted were not at their usual posts.

Even Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who had been briefing journalists with outlandish versions of daily events, did not show public on Wednesday, the report said.

"All of a sudden, all communications ceased and the regime didn't come to work," described a senior Bush administration official. "Even the minders for (foreign) journalists did not go to work," he added.

The most likely explanation for the sudden drop-off in detectable communications and activities among such a large number of key figures is that an order to disappear was given in Saddam's name, and that he is still alive, the report quoted US intelligence officials as saying.

Another less probable possibility, intelligence sources said, is that the Iraqi leader died in one of two US air attacks that targeted Saddam on March 20 and April 7 separately, and that word of his death finally leaked out.

They said if Hussein is alive, he and his loyalists may have sought refuge in Tikrit, a town about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Baghdad on the low bluffs overlooking the Tigris River.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2003)