Whether they are caught in the traffic jam in town or returning to their hotel, foreign journalists equipped with satellite phones receive a constant hail of notepaper from Iraqis left with no telephones and desperately seeking contact with loved ones abroad.

It seems every resident has paper at the ready with a hand-written international telephone number, his name and that of a relative abroad.

"Our car always gets besieged, and some people even throw their piece of paper in the window without knowing if we would actually call. It is not a matter of money, but we can't have every single Iraqi use our phone," said one journalist.

"The other day, I took an Arabic-speaking translator and dialed one of the numbers. The person on the other side of the line started crying," he said.

But it is not only the beleaguered Iraqis. US troops who first rolled their tanks into the heart of Baghdad Wednesday seem just as desperate for phones to call families they have not talked to in over a month.

Phone lines were cut by US missiles which flattened communication centers during the three-week war to oust Saddam Hussein.

Under Saddam's leadership, Iraqis only had land lines, as the country was never equipped with a mobile system. Anyone caught with a satellite phone was taken for a traitor.

Foreign journalists were also told they could only use their satellite telephones at the information ministry, where they were based until it was burned by looters a few days ago.

Since the airport is closed and access by land is still very dangerous, the entire population of 24 million is now left completely cut off from the outside world.

Residents are constantly trying to reach the Iraqi diaspora of at least four million people scattered around the four corners of the world, and vice versa.

After circling for over an hour in a residential neighborhood, a French journalist who had received a hand-written letter from a distant acquaintance delivered by a driver from Amman finally reached his destination.

"God bless you for this kindness," said the woman reading the note.

Samia, a housewife in a sleepy residential neighborhood of the capital, was apprehensive at first, but when she learned that the stranger standing behind the gate of her house had a telephone, she screamed.

A relief worker from an international organisation had received a call from a colleague abroad, asking him to pass by his aunt's house to inquire about the family. The man had no alternative but to look for the address and find it.

"You are an angel from up above," cried the woman. "I have not spoken with my family in America in over three weeks. They must be dead scared, especially after news of the massive missile bombings next to our home,* she said.

"What is this? It is the first time I have seen these things called satellite mobile phones. I can't believe I can call my sister from my garden," she said.

US troops standing tall on their tanks and amphibious vehicles can also only reach concerned relatives with reporters' telephones.

But the receptionist at the Palestine Hotel where most journalists are based had a peculiar incident the first day the marines arrived.

"We were just sitting there when a young marine came up and asked: 'I would like to make a phone call please'," he said.

"I could not stop myself from saying: 'Are you seriously asking for the phone? But you bombed the lines!" he said, adding: "And you know what his answer was? He just said: 'I am sorry."

SPACE.WIRE