A man climbed on to the statue's marble plinth in the centre of a huge roundabout, Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square and passed a thick rope round the neck of the statue.

Other men attacked the plinth with a sledgehammer, knocking off the cladding.

The enormous bronze statue was unveiled on April 28 to mark the Iraqi ruler's 65th birthday. It depicts him in civilian clothes, with one arm raised pointing in the direction of Jerusalem.

The statue is surrounded by 37 columns, marking the year of Saddam's birth in 1937, each one bearing the initials SH in Arabic.

The attempts to destroy the statue began around an hour after US tanks and marines arrived in the centre of Baghdad, three weeks after launching their war on Iraq to topple Saddam's regime.

SPACE.WIRE