THE United States yesterday held up the capture of a veteran Palestinian guerrilla chief in Iraq as proof of a link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism.

US MARINES stormed into Saddam Hussein’s final stronghold yesterday, seizing control of his hometown Tikrit, effectively sealing the US and British victory in the Iraq war and allowing the Bush administration to issue some sombre warnings to Syria.

Marines found seven missing US troops today on the road between Baghdad and Tikrit.

TAKING the law into their own hands, Baghdad residents blockaded streets and beat up looters yesterday as the US said the military does not intend to act as a police force.

Armed with rifles, Baghdad residents beat up looters and blockaded Baghdad streets today in an attempt to quell the pillaging and lawlessness running rampant in the Iraqi capital.

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?

A COALITION A-10 Warthog warplane was shot down near

US FORCES said it may take some time to determine whether Saddam Hussein was killed in a bombing raid on a restaurant where he was believed to be meeting with his sons.

UP to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in a show-of-force foray into Baghdad

A convoy of Russian diplomats came under fire Sunday as they were evacuating Baghdad, the Kremlin said.

A CAR exploded in an apparent suicide attack at a special operations checkpoint in western Iraq killing three coalition soldiers, a pregnant woman and the car’s driver, the US Central Command said yesterday.

American troops today found thousands of boxes of white powder at an industrial site south of Baghdad, but initial tests showed it was probably just explosives.

Some of Iraq’s best conventional forces have been routed by Allied bombing and ground fighting, but more lie between the advancing American troops and Baghdad, US military officials warned today.

IT’s already been dubbed Saving Private Lynch.

US FORCES, using fearsome air power, smashed through elite Iraqi divisions to within 20 miles of Baghdad last night in the swiftest advance of the war to date.

THE International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said yesterday it had begun visiting Iraqi prisoners of war held by US-led forces near the southern town of Umm Qasr.

Allied soldiers inched towards Baghdad today, capturing or killing paramilitary and Republican Guard defenders while new waves of US bombs set off blazes in the Iraqi capital.

Wall Street fluctuated and closed modestly lower tonight as investors reacted to disquieting developments in the war in Iraq. Traders also collected profits from Tuesday’s advance and last week’s big rally.

Two cruise missiles struck a residential area in Baghdad today, killing 14 people, Iraqi defence officials said. It was the worst reported instance of civilian deaths since the bombing campaign began a week ago.

US troops found 3,000 chemical suits in a hospital in central Iraq, reinforcing American concerns that Saddam Hussein’s regime was prepared to use chemical weapons, a US general said today.