Key war developments

Deseret News graphic The war at a glance Requires Adobe Acrobat.

• Thousands of Iraqis flee their blacked-out capital as U.S. forces seize the international airport and armored convoys press in from the south.

• Iraqi's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, said there would be an "unconventional" response to coalition forces and said he was referring to commando and suicide attacks.

• Saddam Hussein refers on TV to an American helicopter downed after the start of the war — the strongest evidence yet that he survived the initial attack aimed at killing him.

• Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed that an interim administration be set up quickly with exiled Iraqis and people inside the country who oppose Saddam Hussein.

• A car exploded near a coalition checkpoint in western Iraq, killing three coalition soldiers, including a Utahn, a pregnant woman and the car's driver, U.S. military officials said.

• Michael Kelly, editor-at-large for The Atlantic Monthly, was killed while covering the war in Iraq, the first American journalist to die in the conflict.

Deseret News graphic Biochemical warfare Requires Adobe Acrobat.

• White House announces that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair will meet in Northern Ireland next week to discuss the war in Iraq.

• France, Russia and Germany renewed demands during a meeting of foreign ministers that the United Nations play a major role in postwar Iraq.

• American and British forces have started distributing water in Iraq's southern city of Umm Qasr, hiring and paying Iraqis to do that and other jobs, a defense official said.