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The US Marines arrived as it was reported that members of the media were coming under attack and had lost equipment to armed Iraqi mobs in Baghdad.

One Portuguese journalist escaped with minor cuts and bruises as a vehicle the journalists were driving in was shot at by a man armed with a Kalashnikov AK47.

The mob stole recording equipment and cameras from the journalists before they managed to escape after Iraqi officials arrived on the scene.

Earlier today, foreign media reporting from Baghdad said that their Iraqi government monitors had fled. The BBC reported that the Iraqi media minders, who have been watching the movements of foreign journalists in Baghdad, had abandoned their posts allowing journalists to file uncensored media reports from the city for the first time.

Yesterday, the hotel was the scene of horror when the US fired one shell at the hotel, which killed two journalists after snipers had been spotted in the hotel. Earlier, a correspondent from Al Jazeera had also been killed in a US missile attack.

The attack on the journalists by the looters today came as the BBC reported gunfire from across the city as Baghdad shopkeepers defended themselves against gangs of looters.

The swift arrival of looters in Baghdad has followed their appearance in Basra, which the British military is now bringing the situation under control with the help of Iraqi locals.

The BBC also showed images of the long-waited-for jubilant crowds who were shown swarming the streets of the Iraqi capital. People were seen dancing and defacing images of Saddam Hussein.

According to Agence France-Presse report crowds could be heard chanting "Good, Good, Bush!".

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said at US Central Command in Qatar said: "The capital city is now one of those areas that has been added to the list of where the regime does not have control."

However, he warned that Saddam loyalists in the north, including his hometown of Tikrit, still posed a threat and "any fighting there... would be similar to what we have seen in other parts of the country," he said.

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