US forces at the gates of Baghdad
The US army was within four miles of Baghdad’s gates tonight, still waiting to be challenged by Saddam Hussein’s much vaunted Republican Guard.
And in a sign of the allies ever increasing dominance, US commandos raided Saddam’s biggest palace, and favourite fishing haunt, in a resort area north-west of the city.
Infantry troops closed on the Iraqi capital from the south and west after crossing the Euphrates River Marines advanced on Baghdad from the south-east along the Tigris River.
The two rivers run parallel to each other for much of their north-west-to-south-east flow through Iraq, with the Tigris flowing directly through the city proper.
