ARAB TV stations led their newscasts yesterday with the CBS photographs of US military police humiliating Iraqi prisoners. One channel called the pictures evidence of the “immoral practices” of US forces.

AN audiotape purporting to carry the voice of Saddam Hussein calling for Iraqi men and women to step up their fight against the American occupation and calling a US defeat inevitable, was broadcast yesterday.

A GROUP saying it is an Iraqi branch of the al-Qaida terror network said it - and not Saddam Hussein – is behind the armed resistance against US forces in Iraq, according to a tape shown on an Arab TV station today.

FORMER Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who earned the nickname "Comical Ali" during the Iraq war, claimed on Arab television yesterday that he had surrendered to US troops only to be freed.

AIRCRAFT screamed in low over the Iraqi capital, shaking buildings early yesterday with a heavy bombardment. As anti-aircraft guns responded, a call of ‘God is great’ rang out from a mosque.

Clouds of thick smoke hung over Baghdad this morning as a series of explosions sounded in the distance and US troops advanced to within 150 miles of the city.