Journalists perish, looters flourish and medics despair in the chaotic jigsaw of war

After opening with tanks, aircraft and artillery pounding central Baghdad, Day 20 of the war proved to be a dangerous one forjournalists in the city and, possibly, for Saddam Hussein.

The bombardment met only scattered Iraqi fire but explosions and machine-guns were heard at President Saddam's main palace which US forces seized the day before. It seemed as if Iraqi forces were firing on the compound with artillery. But the cascade of ordnance was fairly one-sided.

"It's raining bombs," said one Reuters correspondent, speaking from the Palestine Hotel where most foreign media are based. "They're targeting the same area over and over."

There was no news of President Saddam after a US B-1 bomber dropped two earth-penetrating satellite-guided 2,000lb bombs and two delayed-fuse bombs on a building in Mansur, a residential district of Baghdad. Intelligence reports suggested the Iraqi leader was there with his sons.

All one US official could say was: "There is a big hole where that target used to be."

News of the first journalist casualty came in the early morning when the independent Arab TV station, al-Jazeera, announced its Baghdad offices had been hit by a US missile.

Reports of fighting throughout the city trickled through, intermingled with yet more reports of journalistic casualties – an issue which became more politically uncomfortable for the Allies as the day progressed. US Marines were engaged in a gun battle with Iraqi militiamen in the south-east of Baghdad but were moving into the city. American and Iraqi troops were exchanging fire over two key bridges.

Then came the announcement that the al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayoub had died. Next, Iraqi state TV, which had failed to broadcast its regular morning news bulletin, went off the air. Within an hour, so did the domestic state radio. Dark noises began that al-Jazeera had been targeted.

Those on the ground, and elsewhere, found it hard to make sense of what was happening. The Iraqis offered no assistance. Their surreal Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, continued his act of blustering buffoonery, telling reporters that US forces were "going to surrender or be burnt in their tanks". At least when he ceases this charade we will know the game is up for his president.

From all around him came dispatches that provided only jigsaw pieces of information. US Abrams tanks had moved from the presidential palace and crossed the strategic Jumhuriya Bridge over the Tigris, moving for the first time into east Baghdad. A US A-10 ground attack plane had been brought down near Baghdad international airport, though the pilot, who ejected, had been rescued. There were now some 10,000 US soldiers around the airport in the west, while to the east, US Marines seized Rashid military airport and continued their push into the suburbs.

No one seemed sure of the targets, but a lot of government buildings had been hit. And a new sound had been heard in the city – rotor blades from helicopter gunships which blasted a Republican Guard compound in south-eastern Baghdad – indicating that the Allies are now confident they have taken out all the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns.

But analysts warned that US troops still occupy only a relatively small area of the city. "We're not sure exactly who's in charge at this particular point in time," US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said.

We should also expect the unexpected, warn-ed General Wesley Clarke, who as Supreme Allied Commander Europe led Nato forces during the Kosovo campaign. "The coalition tactics for urban combat must have stunned those who expected a block-by-block reduction of the cities, or long-term siege tactics," he said. Instead what was being seen were operations exploiting the coalition's advantages in reconnaissance and information, including overhead real-time television imagery from unmanned aerial vehicles. Given the fact that the US troops were vastly outnumbered, he said, "you can be sure the next steps will be as sudden and surprising".

Baghdad's expatriate journalist community can vouch for that. Less than two hours after al-Jazeera's loss a blast hit the high-rise Palestine Hotel. A Reuters reporter, photographer, TV cameraman and TV technician were wounded and taken to hospital. At the US Central Command in Qatar officials tried to find something to say. Eventually General Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, announced that a US tank fired a single round at the hotel in response to small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The row was to grow. But it had not done so before the US President and British Prime Minister met the press after talks in Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland on the war, the future of Iraq, the Irish peace process and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The atmosphere the two men created was more relaxed than in previous PR sessions, perhaps because the 20-day-old war seemed close to a successful conclusion.

Whatever the cause, it produced from Mr Bush the remarkable promise that he will spend as much time and effort on the Middle East peace as his British counterpart had in Ireland. There was even the semblance of agreement between the two men that the United Nations had a "vital role" in post-war Iraq, though they were evasive on the detail.

"The Iraqis are plenty capable of running Iraq and that is what they are going to do," Mr Bush said without touching on the mechanism in between – an omission the French President Jacques Chirac seized on with his insistence that the UN must play a central role.

To the politicians of Northern Ireland – against the background yesterday of the conviction of three Real IRA terrorists – Mr Bush said that the Irish peace process could be a template for that in the Middle East, and urged them to consign paramilitarism to the past.

As to the business of the day, President Bush declined to speculate too much on the personal fate of President Saddam but – with a vivid manual demonstration of the act of strangulation – insisted that the Iraqi leader's grip around the throats of the Iraqi people was being loosened finger by finger.

Notable by its absence was any reference to chemical weapons which US sources claimed at the weekend to have found, but were saying yesterday would require "more tests". Some reports suggested that what the US troops had found were farmyard pesticides.

It was only after the President and Prime Minister had parted that the row over the strikes on journalists escalated. While there was the good news that two Polish journalists captured by Iraqi forces on Monday had escaped when their captors came under attack, it became clear that two newsmen had died in the attack on the Palestine Hotel.

They were the Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, and a Spanish cameraman, Jose Couso, 37.

The consensus among reporters in the hotel was that – contrary to the claim by US Central Command – there had been no sniper fire from the building. Staff at al-Jazeera complained that they had given Washington specific satellite references for their Baghdad office, and insisted that the direct strike was not just a stray round but a specific attack.

In Brussels, the International Federation of Journalists said five foreign journalists covering the war in Iraq had been killed and at least four others wounded after coming under fire around Baghdad in the past 24 hours.

The federation warned that any deliberate strike against journalists, "are grave and serious violations of international law".

US spokesmen stuck by their version of events, and insisted they were not targeting journalists, Western or Arab.

"It is something we all regret. But I don't believe that it is possible that it was deliberate," a US State Department spokesman said.

But when confronted with the contradictory testimony of the press corps, a US military spokesman could only say that events would be investigated.

The chaos of war was in evidence in many other places. In Baghdad the Palestinian diplomatic mission was badly damaged by a missile from a US warplane. In the southern town of Nasiriyah there was a new development which sent chilling auguries of the days ahead: rival Iraqi groups – believed to be pro-Saddam Hussein militia and local opponents – began fighting, exchanging machine-gun and mortar fire.

In Basra looting began – not just of Baath party offices but also of places like the five-star Sheraton hotel which was stripped of its fittings by a large crowd in less than two hours. Men were seen carrying window frames; a bus dragged a boat behind it.

British troops, though in control of the city, by and large, did not intervene. Instead they appointed a tribal chief to chair a committee to restore law and order. "Policing is not our job," one officer said.

Back home the cost of war was being counted. At noon the Band of the Scots Guards provided a sombre accompaniment as the bodies of 11 British servicemen killed in the war were repatriated at a ceremony. The families of the war dead were present at the service on the tarmac of RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, together with the Duke of Gloucester, the regiment's commander in chief, and – in the absence of the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon – the minister for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram.

The total of British servicemen killed in the conflict stands at 30, with nine yet to be brought back to Britain. In Aldershot the Prince of Wales met families of British soldiers fighting in Iraq.

In Iraq fighting continued throughout the day. In the north Kurdish peshmerga fighters, working with US and UK special forces, captured the small town of Faida as they advanced on Iraq's third largest city, Mosul.

Around Baghdad US troops pushed from the north, as well as the south-west and east, encountering quite fierce Iraqi resistance to the north; buses containing about 500 Iraqi Republican Guards moved to try to retake territory on the other side of the Tigris. To the east the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has just arrived in Iraq, seemed to be positioning itself to fight a division of the regular Iraqi army believed to be almost intact, despite air attacks and still posing a threat between the capital and the Iranian border to the east.

Further south, American forces engaged Iraqi soldiers near Hilla. And at the port of Umm Qasr aid was unloaded from the RFA Sir Percival, only the third shipload of aid to arrive amid fears the port is still not safe for cargo ships.

The wider impact of the war made its presence felt too. In a largely anti-war Germany, prosecutors bizarrely launched a murder inquiry against Saddam Hussein for the death of a Kurdish woman wounded in a 1987 gas attack who died from the after-effects in Nuremberg last month. The UN Security Council met again to discuss the oil-for-food programme. And the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, had talks on Iraq last night with the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.

Towards the end of the day British intelligence sources reported their belief that President Saddam had once again escaped the coalition attempt to "decapitate" the regime. He had escaped death, they said, "by a matter of minutes".

America's other "most wanted" man may have resurfaced last night to mock his tormentors. In an audio tape purportedly from Osama bin Laden, the al Qa'ida leader called for suicide attacks against US and British interests "to avenge the innocent children" of Iraq.

Words of war

George Bush, US President:

"The grip Saddam had around the throats of the Iraqi people is loosening. I can't tell you if all 10 fingers are off the throat, but finger by finger they are coming off."

Major-General Stanley McChrystal, vice-director of joint operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"The Republican Guard are receiving instructions, but in many cases not following them and not capable any more so they're not an effective fighting force. But he [Saddam] still controls elements of the Special Republican Guard and death squads."

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Information Minister:

"We are going to tackle them [US forces] and destroy them. They are going to surrender or be burnt in their tanks. Baghdad is bracing to pummel the invaders."

Gregory Lynch, father of the rescued PoW Jessica Lynch, on seeing his daughter in hospital in Germany:

"We said, 'Hi, baby, how are you doing?' and she said, 'Fine.'"

Audio tape purporting to be from Osama bin Laden:

"You should avenge the innocent children who have been assassinated in Iraq. Be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them with suicide attacks so you may be successful before Allah."

Invasion of Iraq day's events

TUESDAY 1.55am BST: Pentagon says US planes attacking Baghdad location where Saddam Hussein, his two sons and other leaders are believed to be.

6.50: Al-Jazeera television says Tariq Ayoub, its correspondent, has died of injuries after bomb hits its Baghdad office.

7.00: State television goes off air. Earlier, it failed to broadcast its morning news, relaying archive footage of Saddam Hussein and patriotic songs instead.

8.07: Blast hits high-rise Palestine Hotel, housing foreign media. At least two journalists killed, two others wounded.

10.20: George Bush says interim authority composed of Iraqis from inside and outside country will be set up as soon as possible. UN, he adds, will have vital role in rebuilding Iraq.

12.26pm: Leader of main Shia opposition group, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Hakim, announces he will return home after living in exile in Iran for more than two decades.

4.00: Jacques Chirac, left, says UN must play main role in reconstruction.

4.32: A stray rocket, apparently fired from Iraq, kills one person in south-west Iran, the third such case since war began.