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Special forces have been playing a low-key but important part in the war in Iraq. Perhaps the most notable special forces operation was the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Michael Vickers to learn more about special ops. Vickers is director of Strategic Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is a former Special Forces Capt. and CIA operations officer.

NPR's Eric Westervelt is at the Parade Grounds in Baghdad with units of the 3rd Infantry Division. They're securing and consolidating their hold on Baghdad. Resistance today was moderate. Nonetheless, one officer says this is the longest and most tense warfare the U.S. Army has seen since Vietnam.

An NPR War Diary entry from Lt. Col. Ken Brown, a chaplain with the 101st Airborne Division, in southern Iraq, who is helping young Americans in the armed forces to deal with their first brush with death, close up.

U.S. officials say Saddam Hussein's regime appears to have lost hold of Baghdad. Security forces desert the streets, replaced by looters, and government officials have disappeared, though some fighting continues. From Qatar, U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks says the regime "is in disarray and much of Iraq is free from years of oppression." Hear NPR's Jennifer Ludden.

Chicago-based alternative country label Bloodshot Records began with a modest ambition: to make good music and maybe sell a few albums along the way. Bloodshot has been issuing recordings since 1994. They recently reached a milestone -- their 100th release. To celebrate, they've compiled a collection of singles and rare recordings titled Making Singles, Drinking Doubles. Meredith Ochs has a review.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to John Keegan, defense editor for the Daily Telegraph, about how the collapse of Saddam's regime is due to the complete ineptitude of the Iraqi military, which made no use of the country's natural defenses. He says whatever advantages they had were thrown away.

NPR's Larry Abramson reports on the results of FBI interviews of Iraqis living in the United States. The FBI says the information developed has helped with war planning. Many Iraqi Americans have said they're happy to be interviewed, but some critics say the process creates resentment among immigrants.

Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces take control of a key mountaintop overlooking the Iraqi-held city of Mosul, a senior Kurdish official says. He says it is the most important gain in the region thus far, and has opened the way for troops to enter Mosul. Hear NPR's Ivan Watson.

Commentator Margaret Erhart talks about the way schoolchildren on an Indian reservation near Tuba City, Ariz., reacted to the news that Pfc. Lori Piestewa was killed in the war in Iraq. Some of the second graders were related to Piestewa, and all of them knew she was from their hometown. Erhart is artist-in-residence at the school.

NPR's Anne Garrels reports from downtown Baghdad that it was another day of battling in the streets of the Iraqi capital. The fighting and chaos of urban war has blown away the capital's spirit of defiance and is causing a mounting toll of Iraqi casualties.