March 20:

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

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 southern 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 Kurdish Islamist group allegedly linked to al-Qaeda

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 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 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, Iraq says

March 29:

-- Suicide car bombing kills four US soldiers in central Iraq

-- US and British 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:

-- US military leaders 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

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

April 1:

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

-- Coalition warplanes pound Iraqi army positions at Kirkuk

April 2:

-- US forces attack four elite Republican Guard divisions at Karbala in central Iraq

-- US wins an accord from Turkey to use its territory to resupply troops

April 3:

-- US troops reach Baghdad airport, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city centre

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

April 4:

-- US forces capture large parts of Baghdad airport

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

-- Expatriate UN humanitarian workers return to Iraq

April 5:

-- US forces make their first ground advance into Baghdad, reportedly killing hundreds of Iraqis

-- The US 101st Airborne Division launches an air assault to secure the holy Shiite Muslim town of Karbala

-- British soldiers discover hundreds of human remains in an abandoned military base in southern Iraq

-- US Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States has no intention of invading Iran and Syria

April 6:

-- 18 Kurds are killed, including a BBC translator, and 45 wounded near Arbil in northern Iraq when US aircraft mistakenly bomb a Kurdish-US convoy.

-- Several people are injured when a convoy evacuating the Russian ambassador from Baghdad comes under fire. Moscow says the shooting came from US forces

-- US forces have destroyed most of the six active Republican Guard divisions defending the Iraqi regime, a US army intelligence officer says

-- US troops fight their way around Baghdad in a drive to encircle the capital

April 7:

-- US forces move into Baghdad and seize several presidential palaces including Saddam's main official residence. Britain says US troops now control major routes into Baghdad.

-- British troops seize presidential palace in Basra declaring the battle for the southern city "more or less over"

-- At least nine civilians are killed when a missile crashes into a residential neighbourhood in central Baghdad, witnesses say.

-- US warplanes strike building in Baghdad where US believed Iraqi leaders including Saddam and his sons were staying

-- Britain says it believes "Chemical Ali", a feared cousin of Saddam who was blamed for a gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988, has been killed in a US-British raid.

-- Two US soldiers and two journalists are killed in an Iraqi rocket attack on a US military army position south of Baghdad

-- Bush holds summit in Belfast with Blair on post-war Iraq

April 8

-- Bush says he does not know if Saddam survived coalition attempts to kill him

-- Hundreds of families flee Baghdad as it comes under intensive US bombing and US forces battled Iraqi fighters for control of the city

-- Iraq's state-run television goes off the air

-- A reporter for the Al-Jazeera Arabic television network is killed in a US strike on the station's offices in Baghdad. A Reuters journalist is killed and another four journalists are wounded when a US tank fires at a Baghdad hotel housing the foreign media

-- US tanks take control of Al-Jumhuriya bridge on the river Tigris

-- British forces in Basra say they need a couple of days before they can declare southern Iraq's main city secure

-- US forces take control of a second airport in Baghdad, the al-Rashid field in the southwest of the capital

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