March 20:

-- 0235 GMT: The United States launches war on Iraq with limited air strikes on Baghdad, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fails to leave the country by a 0100 GMT deadline set by Washington

March 21:

-- The United States launches 1,000 cruise missiles on hundreds of targets in Baghdad and elsewhere

March 22:

-- US troops meet stiff resistance around the key port of Umm Qasr and in Nasiriyah, a key crossing over the Euphrates River

March 23:

-- Iraqi television shows pictures of dead US soldiers and five captured US troops

-- US air raids pound Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and positions held by an alleged al-Qaeda-linked Kurdish Islamist group

-- A US soldier is detained after a grenade attack that killed one US soldier and wounded 12 in northern Kuwait

March 24:

-- Iraq shoots down two US Apache helicopters

-- Iraq's northern oil capital of Kirkuk is rocked by 24 hours of bombardment

March 25:

-- British and US forces take control of the deep-water port of Umm Qasr, as a fierce sandstorm slows down another flank

-- US President George W. Bush asks Congress to approve a package of 74.7 billion dollars to finance the war

March 26:

-- Iraq says 14 Iraqis are killed when missiles hit a Baghdad residential and market area

-- US-led forces bombard the state television building in Baghdad, taking main TV channels briefly off the air

March 27:

-- 1,000 US paratroopers parachute into the mountainous Kurdish-held north

-- Mines discovered in the port of Umm Qasr delay the first shipment of British aid

-- Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a summit, predicting victory while warning the conflict could drag on

March 28:

-- At least 30 people are killed in an air strike on a busy Baghdad market, Iraqis say

-- Hundreds of Iraqi families flee Basra

March 29:

-- A suicide car bombing kills four US soldiers in central Iraq

-- Coalition forces destroy a building hosting a meeting of some 200 members of Iraq's ruling Baath party in the Basra region, a US general says

March 30:

-- Iraq pledges thousands of Arab volunteers are ready to die in suicide attacks on US and British troops

-- US military leaders defend their war strategy and warn of a long battle for Baghdad

-- US withdraws war material prepositioned in southeastern Turkey

March 31:

-- US forces report their first serious battle with Iraq's elite Republican Guard, south of Baghdad

-- The information ministry in Baghdad is again hit by a missile

-- Hundreds of British Royal Marines launch a major assault to secure a suburb southeast of Iraq's southern city Basra

April 1:

-- US forces shoot dead seven women and children at a military checkpoint

-- US marines capture a key canal bridge near the town of Hilla after fighting which reportedly left dozens of civilians dead

-- Coalition warplanes pound Iraqi army positions at Kirkuk

April 2:

-- US forces attack four elite Republican Guard divisions at Karbala

-- US special forces rescue 19-year-old US soldier, Jessica Lynch, missing since her supply convoy was ambushed on March 23

-- Saddam says in a message read on satellite TV that only a third of Iraq's armed forces have engaged in the battle so far

-- US Secretary of State Colin Powell wins an accord from Turkey to use its territory to resupply troops in Iraq

April 3:

-- US troops reach Baghdad airport 20 kilometres (12 miles) to the west of the city centre

-- Kurdish fighters backed by US planes clash with Iraqi forces for control of an army command HQ in Khazer on the road to Mosul

-- Coalition forces say they now hold more than 9,000 Iraqi prisoners of war

-- Three coalition troops, a pregnant woman and the driver of her car are killed when the vehicle explodes close to a US checkpoint near Hadithah Dam

April 4:

-- US forces capture large swathes of Baghdad airport, and are deployed on the tarmac, but have not seized the airport buildings

-- Some 2,500 Iraqi troops are reported to have surrendered to US Marines between Baghdad and Al-Kut

-- Kurdish fighters cross a bridge near the strategic northern junction of Khazer after more than 24 hours of fierce fighting

-- Saddam Hussein is quoted as calling on Baghdad residents to "resist the invading forces"

-- Expatriate UN humanitarian workers re-enter Iraq for the first time since they withdrew on the eve of the war

SPACE.WIRE