BRITAIN and America stood aside last night as murder and looting plunged Baghdad and other main cities into new levels of anarchy.

Gunmen and thieves ransacked hospitals, hijacked cars and engaged in bloodletting, often in full view of coalition troops. The northern city of Mosul witnessed scenes of mayhem as Saddam’s troops melted away and the population had an orgy of looting.

Washington and London said that it was not the role of soldiers to become policemen, despite growing international calls that urgent action was needed to restore order.

Aid organisations said that the failure to bring the chaos under control threatened a humanitarian crisis. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that the inaction of coalition forces breached the Geneva Convention.

The White House and Downing Street defended the troops’ inaction, saying that lawlessness was a short-term reaction to years of oppression and would soon subside.

By last night the scale of anarchy had eclipsed the euphoria of Tuesday’s triumphant scenes in Baghdad and was souring relations between coalition forces and Iraqis, many of whom accused American and British soldiers of doing nothing to protect innocent civilians. Looters became more brazen after targeting government offices, banks, hospitals and shops, and set buildings alight. Rival armed gangs, many split along tribal and religious lines, fought each other.

Civilians barricaded themselves into their homes, some arming themselves, and water and electricity services remained crippled. In Baghdad one boy, allegedly a looter, was beaten to death by residents taking the law into their own hands. “Where are the Americans?” screamed one man in the centre of Mosul. “You are shooting pictures but you have no way of stopping people from looting.”

One group of bandits hijacked The Times armoured car as it was driven into Baghdad from Jordan by foreign journalists, relieving its occupants of their cash at the point of a Kalashnikov. In affluent neighbourhoods, fear of armed mobs forced householders to barricade their roads, placing roadblocks of palm tree trunks, boulders or branches across each street. At many corners, vigilante groups with machineguns and shotguns checked each passing car.

“They are not bad guys, they are good guys,” the Times interpreter quickly interceded as one group jumped into the road ahead of us. “They are only protecting their homes.”

In the capital, mobs looted the country’s largest archaeological museum, and US troops shot and killed a shopkeeper who was defending his premises with a Kalashnikov assault rifle against looters. In the southern city of Basra, Irish Guards shot dead five looters after the gang opened fire on them.

“The coalition forces seem to be completely unable to restrain looters or impose any sort of control on the mobs that now govern the streets,” Véronique Taveau, a UN spokesman, said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that it was the duty of coalition forces under the Geneva Convention as an occupying force.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said: “We do have an obligation to assist in the security and the coalition forces are doing that. When coalition forces see looting they are stopping it. They are going to hospitals. Our folks are operating to the extent that they can in Baghdad to create a presence and they are dissuading people from looting.” Freedom, he said, is sometimes “untidy”.

Tony Blair’s official spokesman played down reports of anarchy. “We saw a similar mixture in Kosovo and Sierra Leone but initial disorder does give way to stability,” he said.

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge