BBC News 24 will provide up-to-the-minute coverage of the war, and will be co-presented from locations including Kuwait, Amman and Washington.
Whenever there are significant developments in the war, BBC One or BBC Two will simulcast coverage.
BBC One's 'Ten O'Clock News' will be extended by at least five minutes each night, and other news bulletins will have extra time for major developments. The corporation's 'Breakfast News' programme, hosted by Dermot Murnaghan and Natasha Kaplinsky, is scheduled to run until 10am today, the first day of the conflict.
BBC News Online will run around-the-clock coverage and, on radio, the BBC World Service will go into rolling news coverage when major news breaks.
In the US, the TV networks fought on Wednesday night to be first to report the outbreak of hostilities as the campaign was opened to oust Saddam Hussein.
According to reports, NBC said it was first on air, with Tom Brokaw broadcasting news of the first explosions at 02:32GMT reported in Baghdad, which were said by defence secretary Geoff Hoon to be targeting the leadership of president Saddam's regime.
CNN, which is the only American network still in Baghdad, came on four minutes later, with Fox News Channel, ABC and CBS following. The BBC was also reporting live as the missiles struck.
The BBC had Rageh Omaar stationed in Baghdad; Ben Brown and Caroline Wyatt with the British military in Kuwait; Gavin Hewitt with the US military in Kuwait; Nicholas Witchell in Qatar; Lyse Doucet in Jordan; and Fergal Keane on the Iraqi border.
However, it was legendary CBS anchor Dan Rather scooped the prizes with his "Good morning Baghdad" as cruise missiles launched from US warships in the gulf struck.
While US news networks did break into primetime programming, things returned to normal when it became clear that last night's attack was not the launch of the main assault, which is likely to see British troops play a key role in seizing the port of Basra.
President George W Bush, speaking from the Oval Office, declared that the war had begun in a four-minute televised speech to the US at 10:15 EST: "On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict."
Allied forces will no doubt be hoping that world affairs editor John Simpson can liberate Baghdad in the way he freed Kabul from the Taliban in 2001. He will be stationed in Northern Iraq, and a team of BBC journalists will defy Foreign Office recommendations to leave Iraq and surrounding countries.
Since the US began bombing Baghdad, the internet has already seen traffic to news sites spike. Yahoo's US news site saw three times the usual traffic after President Bush announced on US television that the bombing had started last night. MSNBC saw two-and-a-half times usual traffic levels, and is reported to be launching a live video television stream.
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