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Looting surged and buildings were set on fire across Baghdad on Thursday as U.S. troops focused on fighting pockets of resistance instead of keeping order.

Tens of thousands of people young and old, men and women roamed the city, looking for plunder, with American forces making no effort to stop them.

Many of the looters moved into the city center from the poor outlying districts with wheelbarrows and pushcarts, intent on getting their share of the booty.

Meanwhile, smoke billowed from buildings across the city. Marines said Iraqi holdouts were setting fire to their own quarters and blaming the Americans. In at least one case, however, looters were seen setting fire to some buildings in the Interior Ministry complex.

U.S. troops occupied the Oil Ministry. But the nine-story Ministry of Transport building was gutted by fire, as was the Iraqi Olympic headquarters, while the Ministry of Education was partially burned. Near the Interior Ministry, the office building of Saddam Hussein's son Odai stood damaged, its upper floors blackened.

In and around the capital, skirmishes flared between U.S. forces and Iraqi holdouts, and bursts of gunfire and explosions continued to echo through the city nearly a day after the people of Baghdad danced in the streets over the fall of Saddam.

Marines seized a palace on the northern outskirts of the capital early Thursday in a fierce, seven-hour battle that demonstrated all too clearly that the fighting is far from over in Iraq. One Marine was killed and as many as 20 were wounded.

Inside the city, looters hit stores and government installations, including the Irrigation Ministry, the Transport Ministry, the Air Force officers club, the government computer center, the Olympic hospital and state laboratories.

The German Embassy, a three-story off-white building in the center of al-Karada district, was also plundered. Looters emerged with air conditioners and computers.

In the city center, donkey-drawn and horse-drawn carts were loaded with office furniture, TV sets, appliances and carpets.

In Saddam City, a poor, densely populated Shiite Muslim section of Baghdad, residents set up roadblocks and confiscated loot, sending it to a mosque, said Imam Amar Al-Saadi.

On Wednesday, after looting first broke out in Baghdad, U.S. Central Command said American civil affairs troops were there and in other cities to help Iraqis move away from lawlessness and re-establish order.

However, Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said he expected much of the unrest to die down naturally as the euphoria of the regime's collapse wore off. "We believe that this will settle down in due time," he said.

Around the city, most motorists were flying white flags. Some public buses were even running.

The Interior Ministry offices were being turned into a command center for U.S. forces, who went through them to see what they find.

Saddam pictures, posters, calendars and oil paintings adorned practically every surface. Some pictures of his face had been cut out or punched in with fists before U.S. forces got there. Some Marines, encountering large pictures of Saddam with his face cut out, posed for pictures with their own faces thrust through the hole.

Two floors down from the Interior Minister's office was the office of an unidentified three-star general. On the bookshelf behind his desk sat a gold-embossed, green-leather volume dating to the 1990s. It resembled a family photo album, but the pictures page after page were of bombed-out buildings and charred, mangled corpses.

On Wednesday, in a scene that called to mind the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Marines used a winch to pull down a 40-foot bronze statue of Saddam and break it in half. Iraqis attacked the statue with sledgehammers and sticks, danced on its fallen chest and face, and threw garbage on it.

Others dragged the torn-off head through the streets, while children beat it with shoes and slippers a grave insult in the Arab world.

Iraqis and Marines hugged, high-fived or shook hands. Some of the Marines held their rifles aloft in a victorious pose.

"Now my son can have a chance in life," said Bushra Abed, pointing to her 2-year-old son, Ibrahim.

EDITOR'S NOTE Associated Press writer Alexandra Zavis with the Marines in Baghdad also contributed to this report.

photo credit and caption:

A U.S. Marine with Task Force Tarawa calls on his radio as others in the rear argue with a group of men at a checkpoint on a village bridge Wednesday, April 9, 2003, on the outskirts of Amarah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Iranian border south of Baghdad. As coalition forces took control of Baghdad and the Iraqi central leadership dissolved, local leaders in cities like Amarah are vying to fill the power vacuum, asking for U.S. help with humanitarian issues, but reluctant to give up too much control in the rapidly shifting political landscape. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

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