A YEAR after a bewildered and dishevelled Saddam Hussein was pulled from his underground hideout, the bloodshed continues in Iraq - with more civilians and US troops killed yesterday.

Saddam's capture was greeted with great enthusiasm, President George Bush pronouncing: "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over."

Weeks later, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of the US military in Iraq, said: "I believe that in six months you are going to see some normalcy."

Yesterday - the anniversary of Saddam's capture - a suicide bomber killed 13 people and wounded a further 15 near a heavily-fortified area of central Baghdad that houses the interim government and US embassy.

Eight US marines died in combat in the battleground cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in western Iraq.

In the southern city of Basra, insurgents fired mortar shells at the British consulate but caused no casualties.

A year on, and the promise of normalcy sounds a longer way off than ever.

The latest deaths bring to nearly 1,300 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March last year.

US military commanders now acknowledge they underestimated the strength of the insurgents and admit coalition-trained Iraqi security forces are not yet up to securing their own country.

Iraq's interim President Ghazi Yawer yesterday said that the US and Britain had made a huge mistake by dismantling the Iraq army after toppling Saddam - creating a security vacuum.

North Durham MP Kevan Jones, a member of the Commons Defence Committee, has just returned from his third visit to British-controlled Basra to report on progress since the war.

He said: "The impression I came away with on this visit was that progress is clearly being made in the south. Baghdad still remains tough and could get worse before it gets a lot better. A lot rests on the (Iraqi) elections and it is important that whatever government emerges, it is allowed to govern."

The fighting in the western Anbar province, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi, was the deadliest for US forces since eight marines were killed by a car bomb outside Fallujah on October 30.

US forces retook Fallujah from the insurgents in a battle last month in which hundreds died, including at least 54 Americans.

At the time, US commanders claimed the action had broken the back of the insurgency, but fighting in the region has continued.

Yesterday, US jets pounded parts of Fallujah with missiles as insurgents fought running battles with coalition forces.