Three years later, the Iraq war rages on

As ethnic rivals, snipers, suicide bombers and car bombs continued their dance of death across the nation, the beleaguered coalition forces continued to try and restore some order and allow Iraqis to rule the nation.

Last weekend, US and Iraqi forces launched a massive operation targeting suspected Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters near Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The biggest airborne operation in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, it involves 50 helicopters and 1,500 Iraqi and US troops.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein continued to sneer and snarl at the prosecutors trying to build up the case against him. On March 15, after he called on the people ‘to start resisting the invaders instead of killing each other,’ the judge adjourned the case till April.

Image: Saddam Hussein argues with Chief Judge Raouf Rashid Abdel-Rahman, not in the picture, while reporters watch from a gallery, moments before the judge closed the court to the press, during his trial in Baghdad, March 15, 2006. Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial for torture, illegal arrests and the killing of nearly 150 people from Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam.

Photograph: JACOB SILBERBERG/AFP/Getty Images