RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Interpol announces it is sending a special team to Iraq to help track down pillaged art treasures, joining a legion of groups worldwide offering assistance in the recovery efforts.
Aide to Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi says he has been chosen to head Baghdad council.
Proving Hussein's death may take weeks but has taken a back seat to more pressing matters such as securing Baghdad and searching for weapons of mass destruction.
EU leaders urge US to let UN, EU help rebuild Iraq as cracks threaten to appear over how to lift Iraq trade sanctions.
Kurdish soldiers were helping US troops bring security to the ethnically mixed city of Mosul.
A second US Navy aircraft carrier departs the Persian Gulf, leaving only the USS Nimitz battle group on station in the Gulf, defense officials say.
Another top aide to Saddam Hussein on the US most-wanted list taken into custody, Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, is handed over to US forces by Iraqi Kurds near the northern city of Mosul.
In Tikrit, members of Hussein's clan attack rivals from nearby villages, beating them with clubs in fights over food, an American military officer says. US marines intervene.
In Kirkuk, Arab families complain that they have been forced out their homes by a group of Kurds claiming ownership in the largely Kurdish city.
Syria
Syria says will not accept arms inspectors but will cooperate to rid Middle East of weapons of mass destruction.
Secretary of State Powell says he expects to travel to Syria "to have very candid and straightforward discussions" with President Bashar Assad and others.
Syria says it will propose a treaty at the UN that would declare the Middle East, including Israel, a zone free of weapons of mass destruction.
Syria denies American accusations Wednesday that it is sheltering a high-level Iraqi diplomat, or any other senior members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syria has been quietly helpful in the war against the Al Qaeda terror network and there was no evidence that help was abating.
In Baghdad
Marines patrolling a rough neighborhood where currency is exchanged on the black market trade fire with suspected looters, killing one, US officials say. Five or six others are arrested.
People line up at the police station to reclaim stolen cars. Looted vaccines and other medical supplies are returned to the headquarters of the Red Crescent.
US Gen. Tommy Franks holds a videoconference with President Bush from within one of Hussein's abandoned palaces.
French newspaper reports that Republican Guard commander in Baghdad worked deal with US in days before city attacked; in exchange for safe passage, he told his men to lay down guns and go home.
Lebanese newspaper reports that Baghdad Republican Guard commander was inside informant who told US of meeting of top Iraqi commanders in Baghdad suburb. US forces destroyed the building where meeting was said to be taking place.
QUOTES
"Syria won't allow any inspection. It will only participate with its (Arab) brothers and all of the states of the world in turning the Middle East into an area free of weapons of mass destruction." Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthayna Shaaban.
"I don't think we'll discover anything (WMD), myself. I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it. It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a meeting with Pentagon employees.
