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Your support makes all the difference.US Marines were involved in fierce gun battles with elements of Iraq's Republican Guard on the banks of the river Tigris in Baghdad today.
The battle started around one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces and then moved on to a mosque where it was thought Saddam may have been hiding.
BBC journalists reported heavy machine gun and mortar fire during which one marine was killed by shrapnel and up to 20 others injured. They also reported 'hit and run' attacks by Iraqi militiamen on US troops in the Baghdad suburbs.
Capt. Frank Thorp, a spokesman at Central Command in Doha, said US troops acted on information that regime leaders were trying to organise a meeting in the area. During the operations, he said, Marines were fired on from the mosque compound.
He said he didn't know whether Saddam was among those trying to organize the meeting, and he had no information on any regime leaders being captured or killed.
The battles dispelled some of the euphoria after the marines' triumphal arrival in the centre of the city yesterday. Overnight parts of the city remained tense amid concerns over looting and a breakdown in law and order.
Small arms fire was heard, evidence it was reported, of people trying to defend their belongings. Many residents were reported to have barricaded their homes.
Despite renewed firefights between American troops and fighters still loyal to the ousted leader, Marines were free to move about much of the city unresisted.
London and Washington, however, avoided claiming victory, warning that troops still faced tough fighting ahead.
Loud explosions were reported in the north and west of the capital at sunrise as B-52 bombers flew overhead.
At Tikrit, north of Baghdad, where Republican Guard fighters were still holed up, there was sustained bombing overnight and US forces were expected to turn their attention on the city amid reports that Saddam loyalists were retreating there.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Al-Douri, declared "the game is over", becoming the first Iraqi official to concede defeat.
Speaking outside his New York residence he said: "My work now is peace. The game is over, and I hope the peace will prevail."
President George Bush and Tony Blair tried to re–assure the Iraqi people that British and Amerrican forces would leave Iraq as soon as quickly as possible.
In remarks televised throughout Iraq, President Bush told the Iraqi people: "The regime of Saddam Hussein is being removed from power."
The messages will be broadcast this evening by a new Arabic TV network, set up by by the US and UK governments, called Nahwa Al–Hurrieh or "Towards Freedom".
The two–and–a–half minute address, taped on Tuesday while the president was meeting the Prime Minister in Northern Ireland was broadcast as part of the two governments' campaign to convince Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world that U.S. troops are not a hostile invasion force.
"The long era of fear and cruelty is ending," President Bush said, in excerpts released by the White House. "The government of Iraq and the future of your country will soon belong to you. You deserve to live as free people."
A parade of war booty rolled through Baghdad's chaotic streets today as Iraqis emboldened by their regime's collapse combed the city for furniture, appliances, armloads of light bulbs – even a ceiling fan that crept up the road on a young boy's shoulder.
Wth wheelbarrows and donkey carts, with battered pickup trucks and with their own elbow grease, thousands of Iraqis decided it was time to go shopping.
"They're just looting everything," said US Marine Staff Sergeant John Kelley under fresh instructions to help stop the chaos.
"When I came down here earlier, I said, 'They're taking everything but the kitchen sink,"' he said. That very moment, he looked around and saw a man carrying just that: "Ah," Kelley said, "he's got a sink."
Since American forces overran the capital Wednesday, Baghdad residents have streamed from their homes to scour the streets and suck up all in their path – from small souvenirs to heavy armoires to live horses.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Belcher, a commanding officer for the U.S. Marines, told his officers at a meeting to try to quell looting.
Eager Iraqis proved overwhelming, however. "There's so much. How do you stop it?" he asked. "I'm a security force. I can fight, I can keep the peace. But police work is not our forte."
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