Compiled by Joe Humphreys
Day 19: At a glance
1. Allied advance: US troops storm into the heart of Baghdad, seizing two presidential palaces, in a "show of force" rather than final attack. Hospitals battle with a constant stream of civilian dead and injured. Doctors say they are running short of anaesthetics and equipment.
2. "Smoking gun?": Tests on substances found at an Iraqi military training camp reveal levels of nerve agents sarin and tabun in possible weapons of mass destruction "smoking gun", says the US.
3. Karbala taken: US troops claim to have taken control of the Shi'ite Muslim shrine city after fierce battles with Iraqi paramilitaries.
4. Dissidents arrive: Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi is airlifted by the US into Nassariyah with up to 700 other exiles. The lightly armed force is to perform a variety of missions, from delivering humanitarian aid to hunting down Ba'ath party supporters.
5. Dubliner killed: Irish Guards Lance Cpl Ian Malone, from Ballyfermot, Dublin, is named among the dead in the battle for Basra. Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment join the fight in which Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, called "Chemical Ali", is said to have died.
6. Northern front: Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, working with US forces, advance south towards Mosul, capturing the town of Faida.
Ireland war summit: The US and UK leaders meet at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down. More than 1,000 people stage anti-war rally nearby.
Voice from Belfast: "We look at some of the people that are engaged in that [anti-war protest] and we wonder when they became anti-war" - UUP leader David Trimble.
You say "OK": I say "d'accord"
Europeans smarting over America's renaming French fries "freedom fries" over that country's stance on the war, are battling back with similar tactics. A German linguists' group, Language in Politics, yesterday called on citizens to replace commonly used English words with their French equivalents in protest at Anglo-American aggression.
It urged people to say "billet" and "d'accord" rather than "ticket" and "OK", and argued other English words commonly used in Germany, such as "boom", "gag" and "T-shirt" should give way to "hausse", "pointe" and "tricot" respectively.
Reinforcements blocked: Hundreds of Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis and Syrians have followed Iraq's call to join its troops in resisting the US-led coalition. Many more, however, have been prevented from travelling, among them Mohamed Gallel, who took a three-day bus ride to the Egyptian border where the local authorities ordered him back to Cairo. "I resigned from my job. I said goodbye to my wife and children thinking I would die. Now I am back. It's pathetic," he remarked.
Media watch: Iraq's Info-chief
Self-deluded? Cunning? Or just downright comical? Whatever one's view of Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, one can't deny his style. Since Saddam Hussein went to ground, the clean-shaven, bespectacled Minister has become the public face and voice of the Iraqi regime, setting new standards of anti-American vitriol. "Blood-sucking bastards", ignorant imperialists, losers and fools are among his descriptions of the US and UK leaders. Undaunted by Coalition successes, he is apt to flatly deny what viewers around the world can see unfolding on their TV screens. Holding a press briefing yesterday on the roof of the Information Ministry, he told reporters that Baghdad was safe, and that US troops were "committing suicide" at the gates, despite black smoke billowing behind him, and the sound of fighting echoing around the capital.
Sahaf (63), who once trained to be an English teacher, was Iraq's foreign minister for almost a decade and ambassador to India, Italy and the United Nations. Considered close to Saddam but not part of the ruling elite, he has been used in the past to deliver some of Iraq's more conciliatory messages, such as an apology late last year to the people of Kuwait for the 1990 invasion of their country. His daily broadcasts from Baghdad - dubbed The al-Sahaf Show - have made him an unlikely media star, and hero to many in the Arab world. However, Faisal Salman, managing editor of the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, notes viewers "don't exactly pause at what he says as much as they are eager to listen to his funny words".
"They are beginning to commit suicide at the walls of Baghdad and I encourage them to increase the rate of suicide. Their columns are being killed in the hundreds at the walls of Baghdad. We have fed them hell and death." - Sahaf on US troops yesterday.
"They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone. We will not allow them to get out of this quagmire which we trapped them in. They will see their end there." - on the US.
"Those are not Iraqi soldiers at all. Where did they bring them from?" - on footage of Iraqi soldiers surrendering.
"This criminal dog. . . the most despicable creature" - on US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"The international gang of rascals" - on the US-UK Coalition.