PHIL MICKELSON is trumping everyone here at Hoylake as top man for practice.

The Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield is to close by 2010, a leading environmental campaign group predicted today.

American special forces today raided the Baghdad home of the female microbiologist nicknamed Dr Germ who ran Iraq’s secret biological laboratory.

US military officials have denied that American marines shot into a crowd of civilians in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing as many as 10 people.

American forces were today expected to step up their hunt for the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, after four US Marines were seriously injured in a suicide attack in the centre of the Iraqi capital.

Allied Central Command sounded a strong note of caution today, saying the war, and the battle for Baghdad, were “far from over“.

US troops stormed into the heart of Baghdad yesterday, grabbing two of President Saddam Hussein's palace compounds but losing four dead on the fringes of the capital as Iraqi forces fought back fiercely.

THE US military yesterday said it had found the body of the bodyguard of Iraqi commander “Chemical Ali,” but Iraq dismissed reports the military chief himself may have died in an air strike.

United States ground forces made a bold daytime raid into the Iraqi capital today as other coalition troops moved in from the south to test the strength of President Saddam Hussein’s defenders, who are believed to have fallen back for an urban battle, officials said.

Substantial numbers of coalition troops were near the centre of Baghdad today and had no plans to pull back, a US Central Command spokesman said.

TWO US soldiers were killed as American forces secured Baghdad airport yesterday, a crucial step in their bid to establish a base of operations for coalition forces just outside the Iraqi capital.

Advancing on Baghdad from both the south-west and the south-east, US troops battled Republican Guard units today and some reports put them within 20 miles of the Iraqi capital.