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March 20:
-- 0235 GMT: The United States launches war on Iraq with limited air strikes on Baghdad, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fails to leave the country by a 0100 GMT deadline
March 21:
-- The United States launches 1,000 cruise missiles and 1,000 air strike late night sorties on hundreds of targets in Baghdad and elsewhere
March 22:
-- US troops meet stiff resistance around the key port of Umm Qasr and in Nasiriyah, a key crossing over the Euphrates River
-- An Australian cameraman is killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Iraq, and a British television reporter dies in shooting in the south
March 23:
-- Iraqi television shows pictures said to be of dead US soldiers and five captured US troops
-- US air raids pound Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and positions held by an alleged al-Qaeda-linked Kurdish Islamist group
-- A US soldier is detained after a grenade attack that killed one US soldier and wounded 12 in northern Kuwait
March 24:
-- Iraq shoots down two US Apache helicopters
-- US commander General Tommy Franks says the coalition has 3,000 prisoners
-- Iraq's northern oil capital of Kirkuk is rocked by 24 hours of bombardments
March 25:
-- British and US forces report gains in the advance on Baghdad and take control of Umm Qasr, despite a fierce sandstorm which slows another flank
-- Violent bombing on the outskirts of Baghdad
-- US President George W. Bush asks Congress to approve a package of 74.7 billion dollars to finance the war
March 26:
-- Iraq says 14 Iraqis are killed when missiles hit a Baghdad residential and market area
-- US troops kill 1,000 Iraqis in 72 hours in the Najaf region, a US officer says, but this is denied by Iraq
-- Iraqi tanks make a surprise breakout of the besieged southern city of Basra but are destroyed by heavy bombardment
-- US-led forces bombard the state television building in Baghdad, taking main TV channels briefly off the air
March 27:
-- Baghdad comes under early morning bombardment, as Iraq says more than 350 civilians were killed in the first week of the war
-- 1,000 US paratroopers parachute into the mountainous Kurdish-held north
-- Mines discovered in Umm Qasr delay the first shipment of British aid
-- Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a summit, predicting certain 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, Iraqis say
-- A British ship carrying humanitarian aid arrives at Umm Qasr
-- Hundreds of Iraqi families flee Basra
-- The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution allowing resumption of its "oil-for-food" programme for Iraq
March 29:
-- A suicide car bombing kills four US soldiers in central Iraq
-- Intense air attacks strike Baghdad
-- Kuwait City is hit by an Iraqi missile, causing extensive damage to a shopping mall
-- Coalition forces destroy a building hosting a meeting of some 200 members of Iraq's ruling Baath party in the Basra region, a US general says
-- Iraq rejects the UN's "oil-for-food" resolution
March 30:
-- Iraq pledges thousands of Arab volunteers are ready to die in suicide attacks on US and British troops
-- US military leaders defend their war strategy and warn of a long battle for Baghdad
-- Hundreds of thousands of protesters march in Pakistan and Indonesia
-- Iraq claims to have shot down a Harrier fighter and an Apache attack helicopter. US Central Command issues denial
-- US withdraws war materiel prepositioned in southeastern Turkey
March 31:
-- US forces report their first serious battle with Iraq's elite Republican Guard south of Baghdad
-- The information ministry in Baghdad is again hit by a missile
-- Iraqi positions near the northern front line between Kurdish rebels and government forces came under coalition air strike for a third straight night
-- A US military official says US forces and Kurdish allies have captured a suspected terrorist camp in northeastern Iraq
-- Hundreds of British Royal Marines launch a major assault to secure a suburb southeast of Iraq's southern city Basra
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