March 20:

-- 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

March 21:

-- The United States fires 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's northern oil capital of Kirkuk is rocked by 24 hours of bombardment

March 25:

-- British and US forces take control of the port city of Umm Qasr, as a fierce sandstorm slows down another flank

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

March 27:

-- 1,000 US paratroopers parachute into the Kurdish-held north

-- US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a summit in Washington, 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:

-- US and British forces destroy a building hosting a meeting of some 200 members of Iraq's ruling Baath party in the Basra region, US officials say

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 (13 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 6:

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

April 7:

-- US forces move into Baghdad and seize several presidential palaces.

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

-- 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

April 8:

-- Bush pledges after two-day Belfast summit with Blair that the UN will play a vital role in post-war Iraq

-- US marines complete their final advance into Baghdad with thousands of armoured vehicles and Humvees pouring into the capital

April 9:

-- US marines pull down huge statue of Saddam in central Baghdad, as scenes of jubilation spread throughout the capital

-- US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the "tide is turning" against the Iraqi government and that the "regime has been dealt a serious blow"

-- The Iraqi ambassador to the UN says "the game is over"

April 10

-- US-backed Kurdish forces take possession of the centre of northern Iraq's key oil city of Kirkuk without a fight

-- Iraqis begin widespread looting of ministries, shops and museums across Baghdad

April 11

-- US and Kurdish fighters claim control of Iraq's third city of Mosul and move to secure Kirkuk, shoring up their foothold in the north

-- The United States issues a list of 55 key individuals wanted by coalition forces

April 12

-- Hundreds of Iraqi volunteers, including police, turn up in Baghdad in response to an appeal by US forces to help restore order following looting

-- Saddam's top weapons advisor surrenders and insists the ousted regime did not have weapons of mass destruction

April 13

-- US troops begin entering Tikrit, where armed civilians say they ae prepared to surrender to coalition forces

-- Seven US prisoners of war are found in good shape by US troops, the last remaining POWs in Iraqi hands

-- Several dozen Baghdadis stage the first anti-US protest since American forces swept into the capital

April 14

-- US forces control the center and presidential palace of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's former stronghold, all but marking an end to the war

-- All Iraqi oil wells are under control of US and British forces, according to the US Central Command

-- Iraqi police escorted by US soldiers begin first joint patrols in Baghdad

-- Pentagon gives death toll of 117 American soldiers since beginning of war

-- Britain joins the US in accusing Syria of having cooperated with Iraq in recent months, while the United States repeats allegations that Syria has chemical weapons and is harbouring senior Iraqi officials

SPACE.WIRE