1. BAGHDAD: More explosions rock the city after nightfall, sparking anti-aircraft fire. Iraqi troops light giant fires in oil-filled trenches, casting a thick black cloud over the city in the hope that the smokescreen will provide protection against air strikes.
Iraq's Defence Minister says he expects Coalition forces to encircle Baghdad within five to 10 days. Residents continue fleeing to escape the bombing and missiles, anxious to get away before any ground battle for the city begins. Al-Salam presidential palace is among the targets struck by air raids. Coalition forces say, for now, securing ground covered is a higher priority than invading Baghdad.
2. NAJAF: Scene of further fierce fighting. After days of battle, US marines secure a crucial bridge across the River Euphrates. Iraqi engineers pack the bridge with explosives in an effort to destroy it but fail. British accuse Iraqis of drafting children in to fight in the city or face execution. Such is the intensity of the fighting around Najaf that elements of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division encircle it instead of driving northward.
3. NASSIRIYA: US marines clear the road north of the city for a huge military convoy to Baghdad. Reports that 30 US troops are injured in a "friendly fire" exchange near city during intense fighting. Two are said to be "very seriously" hurt. The road in the vicinity of the firefight is said to be littered with more than a dozen burnt-out Iraqi vehicles.
4. BASRA: British forces destroy 14 Iraqi tanks near the city in what is described as the biggest British tank battle since the second World War as a convoy of trucks and pickups heading out of the city containing up to 30 men in civilian clothes attacks British forces. There are also reports that the British military has taken over the radio and television stations. Refugees pour out of Basra where food, drinking water and medical supplies run low.
5. KARBALA: Allied jets take to the skies in force, destroying Iraqi units as they approach US forces near the city. Iraqi civil defence chief Gen Hatem Ali al-Khalaf says raids on the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala to the south had killed 13 and wounded 56. The Information Ministry cancels a planned trip to the area for foreign reporters.
6. HARIR: Early yesterday US troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachute into Kurdish-held northern Iraq to open a new front against President Saddam Hussein. They take control of an airstrip at Harir. A heavy Kurdish militia presence is reported in the area.
The pro-war movement in the US has been in full swing in recent days, with campaigners infiltrating anti-war protests with their unique brand of humour. Www.protestwarrior.com carries a collection of cheeky banners which have popped up at various US anti-war protest marches. They include "except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism and communism war has never solved anything". And "Saddam only kills his own people, it's none of our business".
The omni-present Qatar-based satellite TV station Al Jazeera this week brought the world graphic images of US and British casualties from front-line areas not being covered by other networks. However, its performance has not been to the liking of all.
Yesterday was the third day during which its website was forced to close because of the avalanche of spam mail from US e-mailers apparently angry over its coverage. It has also been forced to suspend the introduction of an English version of its site until the end of April. The homepage of the new site was yesterday jammed with an image of the US flag running under the slogan "Let Freedom Ring. . . hacked by Patriot, Freedom Cyber Force Militia."
The government of the tiny North Pacific island state of Palau yesterday rounded on the Washington Post after the paper had scoffed at the inclusion of Palau and other island states on President Bush's much-lampooned list of nations supporting the war.
"Palau, an island group of nearly 20,000 souls in the North Pacific, has much to contribute," the paper noted. "It has some of the world's best scuba diving, delectable coconuts and tapioca. One thing Palau cannot contribute, however, is military support: it does not have a military."
Mr Rhinehart Silas, deputy chief of mission at the Palau embassy in Washington was fuming. "That is insulting, that is outrageous," he said of the Post article. "If this is the Post's idea of humour, we don't get it."
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has reminded the US that oil wells are not the only riches in Iraq worth protecting. Civilisation in present-day Iraq stretches back to around the fourth millennium before Christ, it said.
Thousands of archaeological sites in Iraq were of importance "to all mankind". Coalition bombs had already damaged some of those sites but every effort must be made to protect them from any further damage.
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