An Iraqi man offers a carnation flower to United  States Marines Sgt. Jose Acostavelo, center as  his squad of Kilo Company, 3rd Batallion, 7th  Marines patrols a neighborhood in Baghdad  Saturday, April 12, 2003. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

A Marine task force Sunday closed in on Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein and last major bastion of his loyalists. The first TV news footage of Tikrit indicated its outer defenses had been weakened, but the CNN crew fled after coming under fire.  A U.S. Central Command spokesman, Lt. Mark Kitchens, said the task force had advanced northward along Highway 1 to "the vicinity of Tikrit." He declined to say if the force - which includes regimental combat teams and light-armor reconnaissance battalions - had engaged in fighting or entered the city itself.  "It's still unknown how much resistance awaits coalition forces in Tikrit," Kitchens said.  The live footage aired by CNN showed no signs of active Iraqi army defenses on the northern outskirts of Tikrit and suggested that intensive U.S. airstrikes had taken a heavy toll on the desert city's military forces.

However, CNN vehicles came under small-arms fire as they tried to enter the city center. A CNN security guard returned fire at least twice, and the news crew quickly drove away. 

Two members of the CNN party were lightly injured, according to Eli Flournoy, CNN's senior international assignment editor. He said an Iraqi Kurd serving as a security guard was grazed by a bullet, and a CNN producer was hit by shattered glass. 

Before the shooting, CNN correspondent Brent Sadler had reported that U.S. military officers were negotiating with tribal chiefs in Tikrit for a peaceful surrender of the city. But after the gunfire, he said Saddam's loyalists in Tikrit were "clearly still in control." 

As Sadler described the unfolding situation, gunfire was visible hitting the road ahead of them, kicking up dust. "That was a pretty ugly moment," Sadler said. "I have never come under such direct fire." 

Though Tikrit has been depicted as a possible locale for a last stand by Saddam's loyalists, U.S. officials in the past few days have been playing down the prospect of a major battle there because of desertions and damage from the sustained airstrikes. 

With combat in most of Iraq over or winding down, the U.S. military was shifting its focus to stabilizing the country. 

As part of that effort, a team of 32 U.S. Army engineers flew into Baghdad on Sunday help restore electricity. Another project is to establish joint patrols by U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police, aimed at curbing the rampant looting that has wracked Baghdad, Mosul and other cities. 

In Baghdad, the looting spread Sunday to a vast stretch of army barracks and warehouses on the western outskirts. Looters using trucks and horse-drawn carts stole toilets, bathtubs, sinks and construction materials from one of the largest warehouses. Nearer the city center, an institute of military studies was looted and gutted by fire. 

Other parts of Baghdad began to return to normalcy. U.S. Army troops guarded banks and hospitals, shops began to open, and hundreds of cars loaded with personal belonging entered from the west, a sign that people who fled the fighting were coming home. 

Some buses were running. Other buses - double-decker ones - have been commandeered by looters to ferry their plunder back home. 

Marines were fanning through neighborhoods of northeast Baghdad, finding large caches of weapons and ammunition in schools, in parked trucks, even in open fields where children play. 

"Get this stuff out," said resident Achmad Idan, 41. "These people can't live here." He was standing next to a blue truck in which anti-tank rounds were discovered. 

In one upscale neighborhood, Marines and special forces found two short-range Frog-7 missiles - each capable of carrying 25 gallons of chemical agents. One, on its mobile transporter/launcher, was found in nursery among potted plants and palm trees; the second was found 500 yards away in a trailer in front of a University of Baghdad administrative building. 

In Mosul, the biggest city in the north, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was shot and wounded Sunday while on a patrol aimed at improving security. 

Maj. Fred Dummar said the soldier was in a Land Rover, driving past a waving crowd, when a bullet smashed through the rear window and struck his leg. The wound was not believed to be life-threatening, but it was expected the soldier would be evacuated to Germany for further treatment. 

Even as the casualty list grew, there were signs the war's end was near. 

Vice Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of naval forces in the war, said two or three of the five U.S. aircraft carriers launching planes on missions over Iraq may head home soon. He said the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation, both in the Persian Gulf, would probably be the first to go. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an interview Sunday with the British Broadcasting Corp., tried to ease doubts about the U.S. role in Iraq's postwar reconstruction. 

"The United States has not anointed anyone to be the future leader of Iraq or to be the leader of the interim Iraqi authority," Powell said. 

"We believe very strongly that the Iraqi people and the representatives of the Iraqi people should do that. We are not in the business of installing the next president of Iraq."