The university, ministry buildings, official offices and houses of members of the ruling Baath party all became fair game for thousands of residents, who started looting once British tanks had entered the heart of the Iraq's second largest city.

The vacuum of authority created by the troops' arrival was total and nothing in the city of two million people was sacred.

"Before the troops arrived in Iraq it was 100 percent safe. The government was strong and stopped people from stealing. But now these people could kill me to take my car," naval engineer Mohammed told AFP.

The offices of the oil ministry, the national electricity company, the central bank and other official bodies, badly damaged in coalition bombings, were invaded by armies of thieves, who carried off their booty on foot, strapped to the backs of donkeys or loaded up in cars.

"We are robbing the government that deserted us all and only granted a good life to one part of the country. Now the regime no longer exists," said one young Iraqi as he and his friends made off with a table, chairs and shelves.

The smiling images of Saddam Hussein, intact in most parts of the city, were mute witness to the looting.

The scene at the university campus was heartbreaking. The building, smouldering from coalition attacks and its walls covered in fresh pock marks, was mobbed.

Everything went: tables, chairs, air conditioning units, ventilators, toilets, paintings, shelves, books.

"This is the future of our children. Without a university and without colleges, how will we be a real town?" asked one resident, blasting coalition troops for the lack of protection they offered.

A few metres (yards) away, Fadila was carrying off a computer and was staunchly defending it from those who wanted to take it away from her.

"Of course I need this television. I'm waiting for my husband to take it back to the house in his car," she said, not wanting to believe the real use of the computer screen in her clutches.

More than 20 tanks that entered the campus hours earlier stood passively by, doing nothing to stop the disorder.

Soldiers continued to build a protective wall with excavators and encircle the grounds with barbed wire: the campus will be used in the days to come as a barracks.

"We have two options: we disperse them or we let them get on with it. For the good of everyone, we thought the latter was the best bet," explained one soldier.

Air Marshall Brian Burridge, the commander of British forces in the Gulf, pledged to bring the looting under control.

"We will try to maintain a sense of law and order," Burridge told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar.

"It's difficult, but we have a lot of practice in it and we'll do our best."

On the ground, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Blackman of Britain's 7th Armoured Brigade acknowledged that occupying armies had a responsibility to guarantee safety and protection of the civilian population.

Contact had been made with authorities in Basra to "create a local government" that would allow normal life to resume, Blackman said.

"There is no way of stopping them. This impoverished people has been repressed by the government and now they believe that they are stealing what this regime has taken from them over the years," he said.

At that moment, a nearby mosque sounded the call to prayer. In the ensuing chaos, who would agree to pray?

SPACE.WIRE