Iraq three years on | guardian.co.uk

Iraq three years on

Keep your cursor at the top of the photograph to watch the key events leading up to the March 2003 invasion - and those of the three years since.

Warning: viewers may find some of these images disturbing.


The third anniversary

World marks three years for Iraq March 20: The third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq was marked this weekend with two days of anti-war marches and rallies across the world, including the first co-ordinated demonstrations in the US, Britain and Iraq. Gary Younge: This misadventure has alienated most of the world from Bush

Seven days in Iraq March 17: An American hostage is murdered. Car bombs kill 58 at a street market. Police discover 29 bodies in a mass grave. And the US launches its biggest assault since the invasion. On the eve of its third anniversary, Audrey Gillan pieces together just another week in a war zone. Mark Townsend: The Iraq effect

The day the war began

Bid to assassinate Saddam March 20 2003: The United States attempted to kill Saddam Hussein with a cruise missile attack in the early hours of this morning, in what President George Bush said were the "early stages" of a US-British invasion of Iraq. Full text: George Bush's address on the start of war

Baghdad shelters that are a shrine to the dead - not a place of safety March 20 2003: Beneath the yellow sky of a gathering dust storm, Iraqis hunkered down for a long and unpredictable siege yesterday, gripped by only one certainty: come what may they will not set foot in the city's bomb shelters.