From a surgical strike to a dictator's demise, the 21 days of conflict that shook Iraq

20 MARCH

At 12.30am Baghdad time, George Bush gives the seal of approval to the last-minute plan that will start the war: the intended assassination of Saddam Hussein. Four hours later, 36 cruise missiles and satellite-guided bombs slam into targets in Baghdad. Mr Bush confirms war has begun and vows to "disarm Iraq and free its people".

21 MARCH

Three armoured columns of British and American troops cross into Iraq from Kuwait under cover of darkness. As Allied air raids light up the Baghdad sky, Royal Marines advance up the Al-Faw peninsula to secure oil installations. By morning,the Allies have suffered their first fatalities, eight British and four Americans in a helicopter crash.

22 MARCH

Black smoke from the Rumaila oilfields brings the first proof of Iraqi resistance. Arab TV shows civilian casualties from the bombing of Basra. The port of Umm Qasr is surrounded but not entered. Similar tactics are employed in other towns in southern Iraq. The British death toll from accidents rises when two Royal Navy helicopters collide.

23 MARCH

Proof of what US commanders say has been their toughest day comes in the graphic form of pictures of five captured American soldiers being paraded on Iraqi television. The troops, members of the 504th Maintenance Division, were captured after they took a wrong turn in the city of Nasiriyah trying to replenish stretched supply lines.

24 MARCH

As the US 3rd Infantry Regiment engages in fierce fighting to secure its first crossing of the Euphrates, Saddam Hussein appears on television and says "victory is near". The Pentagon insists that there is nothing in the pictures to suggest they were live. Yet they admit that footage of a downed Apache helicopter surrounded by Iraqis is genuine.

25 MARCH

The Allied advance is held up by a fierce sandstorm that reduces visibility to just a few metres and bathes Iraq's desert and cities in a dull orange glow. As British troops inch their way towards Basra, the first reports emerge of a much-hoped-for "uprising" by civilians in Iraq's second city. However, it turns out to be short-lived.

26 MARCH

At lunchtime, an explosion rips through a market in a poor district of Baghdad, killing at least 14 people. US Central Command appears to admit it was caused by one of their missiles but the Pentagon later denies that, saying the carnage was caused by an Iraqi missile. The American 3rd Infantry Regiment says it is 50 miles from Baghdad.

27 MARCH

Tony Blair and George Bush hold a summit at Camp David to discuss the war and talk about reconstruction. Both are at pains to insist that the fighting may take longer than many imagine. The Prime Minister, his voice straining with emotion, also goes out of his way to condemn the broadcast of pictures of the bodies of two British soldiers killed in action.

28 MARCH

The British ship Sir Galahad began its approach to the port of Umm Qasr. Humanitarian workers were worried its 600 tons of food would be hard to distribute. Doubts grew over strategy after a US commander, Lt-Gen William Wallace, said Washington had "war-gamed" for a different kind of war, with little resistance by Iraqi "irregulars".

29 MARCH

American forces encountered a new threat: the suicide bomber. An Iraqi army sergeant, later decorated by the regime, stopped at an American checkpoint near the holy city of Najaf and beckoned troops. He detonated a car bomb, killing himself and three American soldiers. The first bodies of British casualties were flown back to RAF Brize Norton.

30 MARCH

Hundreds of Iraqi civilians fled from the encircled southern city of Basra, said to be short of water and facing a humanitarian catastrophe. British commandos staged a dawn raid on the village of Abu

al-Qassib. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers were captured but a Royal Marine was killed and several others were injured when their patrol boat came under attack.

31 MARCH

As the Americans moved on Baghdad, ferocious firefights led to numerous civilian casualties. On Hindiyah bridge, south of Baghdad, a fierce firefight trapped a family. The father was killed and the woman sat awaiting help, her hip shattered by a bullet. Near Basra, British troops were killed when an A-10 plane attacked their Scimitar vehicle.

1 APRIL

Further evidence of the Government's attempt to regain the PR initiative came with a speech by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in which he claimed that it is "increasingly probable" that the first of two explosions that caused a large number of civilian deaths in a Baghdad market was the result of a malfunctioning Iraqi missile, not an Allied one.

2 APRIL

The people of Palestine, West Virginia, celebrated a US success. This is the hometown of Private Jessica Lynch, a US army soldier captured by the Iraqis 10 days ago. On a tip-off from an Iraqi, she was freed in a raid by US special forces on the hospital where she was held. Eleven bodies were found with her, some of them American.

3 APRIL

The war entered its third week with signs that pessimism about the outcome was shifting. American forces attacked Baghdad's main airport; some Iraqi Muslim clerics were, for the first time, asking their people not to resist; and the much-vaunted last stand by Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard in front of the capital did not materialise.

4 APRIL

US forces are encircling Baghdad. The international airport is under US control. Four special forces soldiers are killed by a car bomb in the western Iraqi desert. Saddam Hussein appears to go on a walkabout in the suburbs of the capital, quashing reports that he has been killed or badly wounded. US troops prepare for a siege of the capital.

5 APRIL

The first American troops enter Baghdad by staging a "thunder-run" of armour through the city's south-west suburbs, starting and ending at the renamed Baghdad international airport.

Commanders say the raid's aim was "to show we can". Iraqi resistance is fierce but badly organised, despite threats to defend the capital street by street.

6 APRIL

After more than two weeks hovering on Basra's outskirts, British forces finally entered the city. Troops from the 7th Armoured Brigade met what were described as "isolated pockets" of resistance. New US air and artillery raids filled Baghdad's hospitals with civilian casualties, including a 10-year-old boy who lost both of his arms. His parents also died.

7 APRIL

American tanks and armoured vehicles roll into Baghdad, through the "Hands of Victory" triumphal arches, and troops lounge in Saddam Hussein's bombed palaces on the banks of the Tigris. British troops say they have the body of "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hassan al-Majid) in Basra, after he was killed in an air strike. Meanwhile, looters in Basra run amok.

8 APRIL

Four large bombs were dropped on a restaurant in the Mansur district of Baghdad, where intelligence reports said Saddam Hussein was meeting his sons. Nine people were killed, including at least one child, but there was no confirmation of President Saddam's presence. Three journalists died when US bombs and shells hit an office and hotel.

9 APRIL

On the 21st day, Baghdad fell, or at least that it is how it appeared to a world watching on TV as Saddam Hussein's giant statue was toppled by an American tank to the delight of the crowd of Iraqis. His fate remained unclear. Kurdish sources said that he had fled to his hometown of Tikrit, 110 miles to the north of the capital.