BATON ROUGE — Thousands of National Guard troops are converging on southeastern Louisiana, and Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Thursday called for "no less than 40,000 troops" to be on the ground. But it remained unclear how many soldiers will be assigned to quell the violence that is sweeping the New Orleans area.

"If we need more, I will ask for it," Blanco said Thursday in Baton Rouge. "Looting and lawlessness will not be tolerated."

The National Guard expects about 30,000 soldiers and airmen from states across the nation to be in the region soon. Their mission is "basically the gamut, whatever the guardsmen need to do to support the local authorities and local emergency management authorities," said Jack Harrison, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va.

However, officials could not pinpoint Thursday how many armed National Guard troops will be assigned specifically to help local civilian law enforcement agencies in their attempts to control the streets that, by some accounts, teetered on anarchy.

As of midday Thursday, 13,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen were on active duty in Louisiana, including anywhere from 4,800 to 5,700 from the Louisiana National Guard, officials said. That number was expected to increase to 20,000 overnight, Harrison said.

"We think it will get up to somewhere around 30,000 in the next few days," Harrison said.

Blanco said some of the troops will be sent to other Louisiana cities, such as Baton Rouge, and in particular shelters like the RiverCenter, where 5,000 evacuees are housed.

In New Orleans, where thousands of evacuees sheltered in the Superdome were being transported to Houston, the scene "is secure and under control," Blanco said, adding that her primary concern there is transportation "to get the people out of the stricken areas."

Crimes reported in the area near the Superdome include rape, armed robberies and assaults, but numbers were not available, according to the Louisiana State Police.

The lawlessness has spilled into the West Bank of Orleans and Jefferson parishes, where looters Thursday ransacked the Oakwood Mall in Terrytown and set it afire.

"It is anarchy," said state Rep. Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, whose district was largely spared the brunt of Katrina and is overrun now by lawlessness. "We are going to have more problems from the looting than the storm."

In addition to about 4,700 National Guard troops already in New Orleans, 200 Louisiana State Police are there, including troops who work in riot control as well as SWAT teams, said State Police spokesman Lt. Lawrence McLeary.

State Police Superintendent Col. Henry Whitehorn said a group of Louisiana sheriff's deputies and local police departments have assembled a task force to help control New Orleans. Police volunteers from places such as Michigan, Arkansas, Kentucky and other states are streaming in to help out, Whitehorn said.

He said a "minute number of individuals" are causing the problems.
Under a state of emergency, the National Guard troops are designated as peace officers assigned to help civilian police and sheriffs' offices, Harrison said, adding that "it is not martial law."

On a separate front, the Defense Department is assembling a force of about 7,000 active-duty soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors at military bases across the South and off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency deal with Katrina's wrath.
security for the civilian population.

"That is totally being done on the National Guard side of the house," said Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the Colorado-based U.S. Northern Command, the Defense Department organization responsible for homeland defense.

The task force, which is separate from the National Guard troops, will work with FEMA and is based at Camp Shelby, Miss., near Hattiesburg.

Supplies and relief personnel headed into the region will be staged at Fort Polk in west-central Louisiana, Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City and military bases in neighboring states.

"We are building a force to address" the civil unrest and other missions, Honore said in Baton Rouge Thursday.

The USS Bataan, based in Texas, already is off the Gulf Coast and is launching Navy helicopters into the region to evacuate people, officials said.

The task force personnel also include a Marine Corps expeditionary strike group led by the USS Iwo Jima that is expected to be anchored off the Gulf Coast by Sunday, according to the Northern Command. The USNS Comfort, one of two Navy hospital ships, is scheduled to arrive by Sept. 8,