The Iraqi 5th Corps, charged with defending Mosul, Iraq’s third biggest city still in the hands of Saddam Hussein loyalists, was tonight reported to be negotiating surrender.

American military commanders were today asking themselves a troubling question after rumbling into the centre of Baghdad almost unopposed: where did Saddam Hussein’s feared Republican Guard go?

Allied forces said they had bridged the Tigris river today, opening the way for the final ground assault on Baghdad.