Sounds of war backdrop to life in the city

MEN smoked water pipes at cafes and played backgammon outside their homes and teenagers played soccer in Baghdad’s streets yesterday even as US troops rolled through the Iraqi capital.

Iraqi television and radio still on the air broadcast patriotic songs and slogans and archival footage of President Saddam Hussein firing a gun and greeting crowds of followers.

Radio played a religious sermon exhorting Iraqis to fight and denouncing the US and Britain.

The streets were more deserted than ever but a few Iraqis were queuing on both sides of the Tigris River waiting for buses. Others tried to hitchhike.

Dust clouded the air, stirred by a coming windstorm, and an acrid haze blanketed the city from explosions and fires.

Throughout the day, explosions from the west bank of the Tigris continued to shake the city. The crackle of heavy machine-gun fire echoed across the capital and allied aircraft were heard overhead.

Explosions, heavy and light arms and machine-gun fire rang out from the southern section of Saddam's Old Palace compound, three miles down the river from the New Presidential Palace, taken earlier by the US army.

At the Information Ministry, also on the river's west bank, civilians armed with rocket-propelled grenade rifles stood by and a half-dozen Iraqi soldiers manned sandbagged positions. They flashed a reporter the V-for-victory sign.

Nearby, armed militiamen and civilians loitered around gardens behind a large, Soviet-style complex of apartment blocks.

Asphalt on the road near the Information Ministry and Al-Rashid Hotel was chewed up, evidence of the US tanks and armoured personnel carriers that had surrounded the buildings.

Not far from the hotel, other armed Iraqi militia rode bicycles and soldiers darted around in muddy, four-by-four vehicles. At the city's main bus terminal, nearly 500 people civilians and soldiers stood waiting for a ride.