American forces were within 10 kilometres of Basra early today, a strategic target which coalition commanders hoped would fall during the night. The city was being subjected to a massive air bombardment.
From Safwan and Umm Qasr in the south, both of which fell yesterday to British and American forces, aircraft could be heard by their hundred flying overhead.
Between raids on Basra and Baghdad, plus Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, coalition aircraft were said to have dropped upwards of 3,000 bombs during the night.
Throughout the day, tho0usands of coalition troops and equipment poured across the Kuwaiti border as the alliance sought to secure the Al Faw peninsula bridgehead into Iraq.
As they did so, a column of the US 3rd Infantry Division raced north unopposed until it came to a bridge just south of the city of al Nassiriya, about 200 miles south of Baghdad, where it encountered some resistance and paused.
In the initial invasion of the south, about 250 Iraqi soldiers surrendered after some heavy fighting to defend the port of Umm Qasr.
A senior British officer said: "Although we have not had the number of desertions we would have liked, on the other hand the civilian population has been kept in place and unharmed.
"When Basra falls, however, I expect to see many more Iraqi soldiers laying down their arms as we have instructed them to do."
The first casualties of the war included eight British servicemen and four Americans who died when their helicopter crashed, apparently by accident, in Kuwait. Later in the day, two US marines died in combat.
Last night, US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld said that the regime of Saddam Hussein was starting to lose control of the country. Allied commanders were sufficiently pleased and confident to predict that they could take Baghdad within three to four days.
Mr Rumsfeld said he did not know if Saddam Hussein was still in control of Baghdad. The "strike on leadership headquarters was successful," he said, referring to an attack on a house allegedly containing the Iraqi leadership on Wednesday.
"What was in there is the question," he added. There were rumours during the day that President Saddam may have been injured or even killed during a raid.
Mr Rumsfeld hinted heavily that the Iraqi people should turn on Saddam and his comrades. "It is too late for them to stay in power. What people around them do to them is up to the people around them."
Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged Iraqi commanders "in the strongest possible terms to do the honourable thing, stop fighting so you may live to enjoy a free Iraq where you and children can grow and prosper".
Asked if the bombing indicated no agreement had been reached with the Iraqi military on surrendering, Mr Rumsfeld replied: "That's for sure."