A day after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang, the Shiite-dominated government offered a major concession to his Sunni backers that could see thousands of members of the ousted dictator's Baath party reinstated in their jobs.

Three Iraqi women and a driver working for coalition forces were gunned down as they drove through the frequently violent town of Fallujah.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims worshipped under a blazing sun today at a holy shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala.

With Saddam Hussein defying the American demand to quit his homeland, thousands of US and British troops, armoured vehicles and trucks advanced toward the Iraqi border today, positioning themselves to invade on short notice.