Basra, Iraq ? Hundreds of British troops and dozens of tanks and armored fighting vehicles pushed into the center of Basra on Sunday, sending Iraqi military and Baath Party officials fleeing but also setting off a looting spree in the newly lawless city.

After bombarding southern Iraq’s largest city for much of the 17-day war, the British army met little resistance in taking “large parts” of Basra from Saddam Hussein’s forces, who apparently “melted away” or fled north, officers said.

Beside the main road into this city of 1.3 million, some residents cheered. Others rode the highway out of town — many of them looters stealing anything they could tow, and some Baath officials attempting to sneak away.

A line of tanks and armored troop carriers reached Baghdad Street, near the city’s center, initially prompting panicked residents to flee. But by Sunday evening, many were headed home again.

“It’s finished,” said Kalaf Hassan, a butcher in the city. “Now it’s safe.”

British commanders, careful to avoid house-to-house fighting that might bring high casualties, had ordered a series of probing attacks in the last two weeks, seeking to identify enemy positions. Sunday’s attack began as a similar probe, but when British forces encountered light resistance, they decided to move in more forcefully, officers said.

In securing the southern half of Basra Sunday afternoon, no allied casualties were reported, and the British said they were expecting the entire city to fall in the next day or so.

Families escaping Basra said looters had taken to the streets as Iraqi forces fled, breaking into a supermarket and other shops. Trucks headed out of the city Sunday afternoon carried groups of young men atop piles of new truck tires, still in their wrapping.

Other trucks emerged from the city laden with water pipes, air conditioners and auto parts. One man in a tractor was seen exiting the city several times — with a different car in tow each time.

“Everyone is stealing everything they can find. People are destroying the city,” said Ali Mohammed, an Arabic language student at Basra University. He said looters had also broken into the university and were carting away classroom contents.

Iraqis carrying stacks of goods in their trucks flee the southern city limits of Basra. Stores were looted Sunday as British troops pushed farther into the city to create a forward base.

“How will we go to school now?” he asked. “The U.K. soldiers are the ones attacking, but it is the people who are destroying the city.”

Travelers leaving the city said residents had broken into the main prison and freed everyone still held behind bars.

But for the first time since the war began, residents began cheering and gesturing thumbs-up. Saddam’s enforcers had battered and punished those who publicly supported the invading U.S. and British forces, but that atmosphere largely vanished on Sunday.

“Very good, Mr. Bush!” said one man driving his wife and children in an orange-and-white cab that was converted to a family vehicle, a common Iraqi practice.

In recent days, Saddam reportedly had dispatched some of his better-prepared forces from the Republican Guard to defend Basra.

But by Sunday evening, two British battle groups, with a third in reserve, were advancing block by block in a pincer-like movement within Basra. They had yet to face the house-by-house guerrilla warfare that they had feared from Iraqi’s Republican Guard, militia and paramilitary Fedayeen fighters.

Allied commanders had expected a civilian uprising against Saddam in Basra, and that was one reason they held off making a major assault. But Iraqis in the south said they weren’t going to stage an uprising until they were convinced that Saddam was ousted from power.