"The outer cordon in the vicinity of Baghdad really is complete," Major General Victor Renuart told reporters at the US Central Command's war headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

He said that the major routes in and out of Baghdad were all blocked to prevent Iraqi reinforcement forces from moving in or senior Iraqi leaders from escaping.

After entering the city center to topple a giant statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the symbol of his 24-year rule, US troops continued their advances in many parts of the city.

However, they were encountered with sporadic Iraqi resistance on the way, which sometimes even turned out to be deadly.

Two US soldiers were killed Thursday and at least 22 others wounded in a fierce fighting near a mosque and a suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

US Marines engaged in a fierce fighting for four hours with Iraqi fighters holed up inside the Imam al-Adham Mosque in north of city center, where senior Iraqi leaders were believed to be holding a meeting.

One Marine was killed and 22 others wounded in the fighting around the mosque and a nearby presidential palace.

In the Saddam City in northeast of Baghdad, US Marines swept through the sprawl of shabby neighborhoods early Thursday, snuffing out remnants of Iraqi forces still loyal to Saddam regime.

"We are not taking anything for granted or thinking it is a done deal, we still need to root out some bad guys," said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Culpepper, division operation officer in the 3rd infantry division.

Fighting also raged near an oil refinery in southwestern Baghdad. It was reported that at least two dozens of Iraqi fighters and civilians were killed on a road leading toward the international airport.

Highlighting the dangers persisting despite the US advances, an Iraqi suicide bomber blew himself up at a US checkpoint, killing one US Marine and wounding at least three others.

With the majority of Iraqi troops disintegrated, non-Iraqi Arab volunteer fighters were putting up some of the most stubborn resistance in Baghdad.

Arab fighters were seen manning checkpoints and patrolling along streets in the Aadhamiya and Waziriya districts in the north, as well as in the Mansur district in the west.

US planes dropped bombs at suspected targets in these areas, where abandoned Iraqi artillery pieces and missile launchers were seen in the streets.

Meanwhile, looting continued to be rampant in many areas of the city in the absence of government rule.

The looters, many from the impoverished Shiite neighborhoods, stormed into luxury villas abandoned by high-ranking Iraqi leaders to steal everything that could be moved.

Witnesses said gangs of looters took away furniture, home appliances, bottles of wine, artifacts and white Arabian horses from the luxury home of Uday, the elder son of Saddam Hussein.

The homes of Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, No. 2 leader Izzat Ibrahim and Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz were also targeted in the looting spree.

The German embassy, France Culture Center, the UN compounds and some hospitals in Baghdad were also plundered by the increasingly reckless looters.

A day earlier, looters already ransacked various government buildings, including the Trade Ministry, Finance Ministry, Oil Marketing Co. and the traffic police headquarters.

UN aid officials slammed US and British troops for failing to restore the law and order in major Iraqi cities including the southern city of Basra, where the looting spree started first.

Veronique Taveau, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said the US and British troops should rein in looting mobs because they are obliged as an occupying force under international law to prevent chaos.

"There is widespread looting and every official building and most of the UN compounds have been looted. Humanitarian assistance will be hurt," she added.

In the north, Kurdish fighters entered the strategic oil center of Kirkuk without encountering Iraqi resistance, raising alarm among Turkish leaders, who vowed to intervene militarily if they did not withdraw from the city.

As agreed by the US government, Turkey was sending a group of observers to Kirkuk to ensure the Kurdish withdrawal from the city.

Ankara is worried that the Kurdish control of the Iraqi north including the oil-rich Kirkuk could lead to the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, thus boosting the Kurdish separatist movement in its southeast.

US troops in northern Iraq were also poised to enter the third largest city of Mosul early Friday amid reports that the Iraqi forces there had agreed to surrender.

In another development, Iraq's prominent Shiite leader Abdul Maguid Al-Khoei was assassinated Thursday in the central city of Najaf.

Al-Khoei, who recently returned from exile in London, was stabbed to death at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, one of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims. He is son of former Grand Ayatollah who was spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites during the 1991Gulf War.

Another Shiite cleric royal to Saddam, who entered the mosque with Al-Khoei to attend a reconciliation meeting of religious leaders, was also killed by a mob after a quarrel.

This was the first known political assassination in Iraq following the collapse of the Saddam regime on Wednesday.

The death of Al-Khoei is expected to raise tensions among Iraq's majority Shiite population and aggravate the already volatile situation in the absence of law and order.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2003)