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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:
-- 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 Umm Qasr
March 26:
-- Iraq says 14 Iraqis are killed when missiles hit a Baghdad residential and market area
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 30:
-- Coalition air strikes pound the outskirts of Baghdad, seeking to soften up Saddam's elite Republican Guard
March 31:
-- US forces report their first serious battle with Iraq's elite Republican Guard south of Baghdad
April 1:
-- US forces shoot dead seven women and children at a military checkpoint
-- Coalition warplanes pound Iraqi army positions at the northern oil city of Kirkuk
April 2:
-- US forces attack four elite Republican Guard divisions at Karbala in central Iraq
April 3:
-- US troops reach Baghdad airport, 20 kilometres (13 miles) from the city centre
-- Coalition forces say they 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
April 8:
-- Bush pledges after a two-day Belfast summit with Blair that the UN will play a vital role in post-war Iraq
April 9:
-- US marines pull down a 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 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 people it wants to question
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 enter Saddam's ancestral home town of Tikrit
-- President Bush accuses Syria of having chemical weapons and warns it must cooperate with US forces to eradicate last remnants of Saddam's regime
-- Seven US prisoners of war, the last remaining POWs in Iraqi hands, are found in good shape by US troops
-- Several dozen Baghdadis stage the first anti-US protest since US forces swept into the capital
April 14
-- US forces take control of Tikrit with barely a fight, effectively ending the military campaign
-- 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
April 15
-- Fifteen people are killed in Mosul, as witnesses allege US troops opened fire. US forces later admit to shooting dead seven people.
-- The United States threatens Syria with diplomatic and economic sanctions amid reports Damascus has given refuge to fleeing Iraqi officials
-- US officials announce the capture in Baghdad of Abu Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking
April 16
-- A 12-year-old Iraqi boy who lost both his arms and was orphaned in a US missile attack on his home in Baghdad receives emergency treatment in Kuwait
-- US President George W. Bush calls on the United Nations to lift crippling economic sanctions on Iraq with Saddam's regime "passed into history"
-- US officials say Secretary of State Colin Powell may travel to Syria for talks on defusing new tensions between the two countries
April 17
-- Coalition forces arrest Barzan al-Tikriti, half-brother of Saddam Hussein, in a special operation
-- The European Union calls for the United Nations to play a central role in rebuilding Iraq
-- The top US general congratulates the military on a "tremendous combat victory" in Iraq, becoming the first top US military or administration official to declare victory
-- United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix says UN arms inspectors could give credibility to any discovery of banned weapons made by US or British troops in Iraq
April 18
-- Abu Dhabi television broadcasts what it said was footage of crowds cheering Saddam in Baghdad on April 9
-- Thousands of Iraqis stage anti-US protests
-- CNN reports the United States is sending a 1,000-strong team to Iraq to hunt for weapons of mass destruction
April 19
-- Former Iraqi finance minister Hikmat al-Azzawi, who figures 45th on a list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis, is arrested by Iraqi police
-- Iraq's neighbours call for coalition forces to pull out of the country to allow representative government to be formed
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