The tour of duty by regional journalists in the Gulf is shortly to come to an end.

But despite the close of serious fighting and a change of emphasis in the role of the troops in Iraq, members of the regional press corps are still filing reams of copy to keep their readers informed.

James Fraser, deputy news editor at the Evening Star in Ipswich, has been told he could be on his way home in the next few days after living and working with his local regiment, 16 Air Assault Brigade, since before the fighting began.

He is now accompanying them as they work their way through villages that line the banks of the Tigris in Missan province.

He is sending at least two in-depth reports a day of their movements and in his latest copy wrote: "On the huge picture that overlooked the entrance to a whitewashed barracks compound, a symbol of his once iron grip, Saddam had been monstered with horns, his face and insignia blanked out with savage swipes of black paint. People threw shoes at the ruined placard - the ultimate Arabic insult.

"As if to emphasise the brutal conviction with which they had ejected the servants of a despised regime, one of the men picked up a broken piece of concrete and mimicked clashing it against his head, pointing excitedly into a room thick with flies and the unmistakable stench of death. Two bloody bundles of rags lay in there. I didn't look any closer.

"As we left, the throng pressed around our two 4x4s broke into a round of applause. But a sharp edge of bitterness lingered underneath their obvious delight. A shot rang out, but as with most of the sporadic gunfire that crackles round these parts, we had no idea whether it was fired in celebration or in anger."

The gunfire was not the first - or last - he was to hear during the soldiers' patrol. Some was necessary in the new order that was gradually taking shape in the leaderless country.

Looters leafing through official documents in old municipal buildings were sometimes reluctant to move on.

"Get out now!" came the Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins' cry from within the building, little need for translation, as a group of three young Iraqi men walked as fast as their legs could carry them and still manage to retain the insouciance of naughty schoolboys.

"Others remained and a shot rang out. A couple more would-be looters scurried out followed by the colonel, holstering his pistol after firing his warning shot into the ceiling. 'That's the way business is done in this country,' he said. 'It works.'"

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