Allied special forces were inside Baghdad last night,
                    seeking out "regime leadership targets" after US troops
                    launched an assault to capture the main airport and
                    entered the city outskirts.

                    Allied aircraft dropped "black-out" bombs on to the main
                    power supply lines plunging the capital into complete
                    darkness in order to allow the SAS and its US Delta Force
                    counterparts to enter the city unimpeded.

                    They were looking for the Special Republican Guard that
                    are thought to be lying in wait should regular allied troops
                    venture into the city.

                    It remained unclear whether they would do so. Allied
                    commanders have stressed they would rather wait but the
                    allied troops seemed likely to continue advancing until
                    they met resistance.

                    Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, called on the
                    Iraqi armed forces not to oppose the allied advance but
                    warned that "for the senior leadership, there is no way
                    out - their fate has been sealed by their actions".

                    There was "not a chance" that the allies would agree to a
                    deal that would allow Saddam Hussein to get out of Iraq.
                    "If you're asking if we're still encouraging him to leave,
                    the answer is no," he said.

                    In a message to the Iraqi forces, Mr Rumsfeld said: "They
                    must now decide whether they want to share the fate of
                    Saddam Hussein or will they save themselves.

                    "Given the conduct of the Iraqi regime, it increasingly
                    seems that Iraq is running out of real soldiers and soon
                    all that will be left are war criminals."

                    Allied commanders were bullish about the pace of the
                    advance but serious questions were being asked about
                    the lack of any resistance from the Republican Guard
                    divisions which were supposed to be defending the city.

                    The allies claimed that elements of the other four
                    divisions were moving south, setting up a potential battle
                    for the capital, but there was none of the heavy fighting
                    expected if major allied units had met the Republican
                    Guard. "This was going to be the big fight," one senior
                    coalition official said.

                    "There was fighting but there was not one coalition soldier
                    killed. Where was that potent fighting force?" 

                    The swift advance on Baghdad was greeted with praise
                    from British commanders who described it as a textbook
                    example of manoeuvre warfare. Not one American soldier
                    was said to have died in the fighting with the Republican
                    Guard.

                    One American general admitted that the lack of any
                    serious Republican Guard posed questions as to where
                    they were. "Have they pulled back into Baghdad to await
                    our arrival?" Brig-Gen Vincent Brooks asked. "We'll have
                    to take that into consideration and see if that is the case."

                    The swift advance on Baghdad by the 3rd Infantry
                    Division, moving north from Karbala, and the 1st Marine
                    Division, moving north-west from Kut, had left only
                    remnants of the Republican Guard Medina and Baghdad
                    divisions in their wake.

                    One American journalist with the marines advancing
                    towards Baghdad said busloads of Iraqi deserters and
                    civilians were fleeing south and surrendering to the
                    advancing allied forces.

                    "There are so many people on the road now that it's
                    impossible to conduct military operations and so our unit
                    has stopped and set up a hasty prisoner of war
                    compound," said Mike Cerre, an ABC TV correspondent.

                    "What is stopping us now is the flood of deserters and
                    civilians, on buses, trucks, taxicabs and whatever they
                    can catch a ride on, trying to make their way south to
                    their families or American forces to surrender," he said.
                    Dozens of Iraqis, including civilians and soldiers, were
                    killed in the village of Furat, near Baghdad airport, in what
                    witnesses said was a US missile strike.

                    They said more than 120 people were wounded in the
                    attack on the village. Iraqi officials put total deaths at 83
                    but this could not be independently confirmed.

                    "We saw a pile of dead bodies at one of the four hospitals
                    where the victims were taken," a Reuters reporter said.
                    "Most of them appeared to be military."

                    Artillery fire could be heard near Saddam International
                    Airport on the southwestern edge of the city as the attack
                    was reported to have begun.

                    Tracer rounds raced through the dark sky and artillery
                    shells exploded in the air.

                    Last night, there were reports of fighting between Iraqi
                    forces and the Americans at the airport.

                    A sustained barrage of artillery and anti-aircraft fire on
                    the outskirts of Baghdad shortly before nightfall was
                    followed by a black-out across the capital as electricity
                    supplies were cut.

                    Allied officials in Qatar denied responsibility but defence
                    sources in London confirmed it was deliberately
                    engineered using the "black-out bomb", which drops
                    thousands of confetti-like filaments to short circuit power
                    supplies.

                    In an indication of the freedom of movement allied special
                    forces enjoy to the west and north of Baghdad, allied
                    commanders showed footage of a raid on Saddam's
                    palace at Thar Thar, 50 miles north-west of the capital.
                    "Our special operations forces have enjoyed very good
                    freedom of action," Gen Brooks said.

                    British sources said the SAS had completely neutralised
                    the Scud threat in western Iraq and were routinely
                    mounting checkpoints along the roads from Baghdad to
                    Damascus and Amman.

                    Allied attempts to take the holy city of Najaf were
                    bolstered by a fatwa from a senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric,
                    Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who ordered local people
                    not to interfere with allied troops.

                    Further south, US marines tightened their grip on the town
                    of Nasiriyah where tens of their numbers were killed by
                    fedayeen paramilitaries last week.

                    In the north, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters working with
                    small numbers of American troops and supported by
                    allied aircraft fought their way five miles south to within
                    25 miles of Mosul.

                    The pace of the allied advance was marred only by an
                    apparent friendly fire incident in which a US Navy FA18
                    Hornet fighter bomber was shot down by what was
                    believed to be a US Patriot missile. A Black Hawk
                    helicopter also crashed near Karbala with the loss of up to
                    six crew.

                    Iraq claimed to have shot it down but allied spokesmen
                    said it was still not clear if it had been brought down by
                    hostile fire.

                    At least one US soldier was killed by friendly fire in the
                    hours-long skirmish south of Baghdad when an US Air
                    Force F15 Eagle aircraft mistakenly attacked a US artillery
                    position. The United States lists 54 dead and 12 missing
                    since the war began. Britain says it has suffered 27 dead.
                    Iraq has not given figures for military deaths but Naji
                    Sabri, the foreign minister, said on Thursday more than
                    1,250 civilians had been killed.

                    In the footage of the American special forces operation on
                    Saddam's palace at Thar Thar, troops were seen bursting
                    through French windows at the palace, one of the
                    president's favourite retreats. Central Command said no
                    leaders were found in the palace, which includes holiday
                    homes for senior Iraqis, but useful documents had been
                    found.

                    American forces may declare a new interim government
                    for Iraq before Baghdad is fully conquered, leaving
                    Saddam Hussein's administration to become "irrelevant"
                    and wither away, the senior US military commander said
                    yesterday.

                    Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,
                    outlined how coalition forces might achieve a rapid de
                    facto victory, declaring an interim administration even
                    while a rump Iraqi government was still holed up in the
                    capital.

                    Noting that half of Baghdad's five million people were Shia
                    Muslims hostile to the Saddam regime, Gen Myers went
                    on: "When you get to the point where Baghdad is
                    basically isolated, then what is the situation you have in
                    the country?

                    "You have a country that Baghdad no longer controls, that
                    whatever is happening inside Baghdad is almost
                    irrelevant. So this notion of a siege, and so forth, I think
                    is not the right mental picture."

                         © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.