U.S. Marines faced pockets of Iraqi resistance in the strategic Iraqi port of Umm Qasr on Saturday, a day after Washington said it had won control. The Marines also said that U.S. and British forces had taken between 400 and 450 Iraqi prisoners in fighting around Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port, and the nearby Faw peninsula which controls access from the Gulf to Iraq's tiny coast.

Thomas Waldhauser, Commanding Officer of the 15th Marine expeditionary unit, told reporters in Umm Qasr that the Marines hoped to secure Umm Qasr later on Saturday. One U.S. Marine died in the fighting for the port. Waldhauser said he had no idea of Iraqi casualties.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington on Friday that U.S. and British forces had captured Umm Qasr. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf on Saturday dismissed Rumsfeld's statement as "illusions and lies."

Reuter's reporter Adrian Croft, in Umm Qasr, said that he heard a burst of machinegun fire on Saturday and the sound of artillery apparently fired at the town.

U.S. Marines also set up a mortar but did not fire. Waldhauser said defenders had had small arms, rifles, mortars, rocket propelled grenades and some artillery.

LAST-MINUTE REINFORCEMENTS

Waldhauser said that some of the defenders were dressed in civilian clothes and that some had been brought in at the last minute to resist the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that started on Thursday.

"At times military units start to change into civilian clothes. They move and claim they are not in the military," he said. He also said they were also hiding among civilians.

Waldhauser said the Marines would start trying to check piers and cranes in the port for booby traps. U.S.-led forces want to use the port for humanitarian supplies.

British Brigadier Jim Dutton, commander of Third Commando Brigade of the British Royal Marines, reiterated that his forces had captured the southern end of the Faw peninsula.

PHOTO CAPTION

British army soldiers greet U.S. Marines from the top of an armored vehicle, as they move into southern Iraq on March 22, 2003. Oleg Popov/Reuters)