One laughing white-haired man was seen hitting a poster of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with a sandal, over and over again.

Other images showed dozens of men giving the thumbs-up to the camera and waving Kalashnikov rifles, and looters cheerfully making off with carton boxes, furniture, even a bouquet of flowers.

One man was seen struggling to put a huge vase into the back of a car, in the images carried on BBC, ITV and Sky News television.

It was not clear where in Baghdad the images were taken, but in none of them were US soldiers or Iraqi police to be seen.

"There's no one there to stop them," BBC radio reporter Andrew Gilligan said in a live broadcast from the Iraqi capital.

"There is looting of government stores, people going out into the streets without seemingly any fear, chanting anti-government slogans," added BBC television reporter Rageh Omaar.

"Really, government control has ebbed away," he said.

SPACE.WIRE