An international news agency today reported that President Saddam Hussein's rule has collapsed as jubilant Iraqis welcomed advancing US forces into the capital with flowers while looters attacked symbols of his power.

Reuters

said chaos erupted in the city of five million as people torched official buildings, looting anything they could from air-conditioning units to flowers.

"People, if you o­nly knew what this man did to Iraq," yelled an old man standing in the road, thrashing at a torn portrait of Saddam with his shoe. "He killed our youth, he killed millions."

Joyful crowds threw flowers and cheered as US marines drove into the city from the eastern suburb of Saddam City, home to about two million impoverished Shiite Muslims.