April 8, 2003	Tuesday	Safar 5, 1424

* US forces storm the heart of Baghdad, seizing two presidential palace complexes; US troops, tanks still occupy one of the palaces as night falls in the capital

* UK says may have found body of “Chemical Ali”

* Red Cross says conditions “terrible” in Baghdad hospital

* Iraqi opposition leader Chalabi arrives in southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya with 700 fighters; head of Iraq’s main Shia opposition will return to Iraq after 23-year exile, aide says

* US weapons experts believe they may have found an Iraqi storage site for chemical weapons. QUOTES

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on UN role in Iraq: “I do expect the UN to play an important role.”

Red Cross spokesman on conditions in Baghdad hospital: “Surgeons have been working round the clock for the past two days and most are exhausted. Conditions are terrible.”

CASUALTIES

* US - 91 dead, 14 missing

* Britain - 30 dead

* Iraqi military - More than 2,320, according to US military. Iraq has given no figures for its military losses

* Iraqi civilians (Iraqi estimates) - 1,252 killed, 5,103 injured

MILITARY ACTION

BAGHDAD: US forces mount raid into the heart of Baghdad and enter two palace complexes of Saddam Hussein. US officer says 65 tanks and 40 Bradley fighting vehicles take part. US forces near the Information Ministry and central Rashid Hotel but do not take them. Iraqi forces block many Tigris bridges, defend key ministries with rocket-propelled grenades.

Iraqi, US troops exchange fire in a “battle zone” in central Baghdad that includes a residential district. Two US soldiers and two journalists killed, 15 injured and six missing in Iraqi attack on communications centre south of Baghdad.

Two US Marines are killed and many injured in fighting to secure two bridges over a river on the edge of Baghdad, US military says. Marines say both bridges are badly damaged in the fighting but say they have crossed the river using one of the bridges and a new crossing laid by military bridge-laying machines. Heavy bombing of Baghdad resumes.

BASRA: British paratroopers guarded by tanks and helicopter gunships walk unopposed into the centre of Iraq’s second city of Basra. —Reuters