AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar -- A "significant number" of U.S. troops are entering Baghdad and they are not just on a brief patrol, a spokesman at U.S. central command forward headquarters in Qatar said on Saturday.

"We do now have troops in the city of Baghdad ... they're in the middle of the city of Baghdad," Captain Frank Thorp told Reuters. "We will continue to move, this is more than a patrol that goes in and comes back out. We're a mobile force so we'll continue to move, but at this point we have a significant number of troops moving into the city."

He declined to put a number on the troops entering the Iraqi capital or say specifically where he meant by the "middle" of the city.