Baghdad still restless as Bush claims victory

President George Bush yesterday finally proclaimed "victory" in the war in Iraq amid distinctly mixed signs of progress in the allies' efforts to start returning life to normal in the country's capital.

As Baghdad's children began to return to school for the first time in well over a month, efforts to reduce civilian crime suffered a setback when the city's newly appointed police chief, Zuhir al-Naimi, resigned after only 10 days in the job.

In his weekly radio address, the President again set out to link the Iraq conflict with his post-11 September "war against terrorism", despite the lack of any firm evidence of a connection. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that still goes on," he said. "The scattered cells of the terrorist networks still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people."

As his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, held two hours of talks in Damascus with the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, Mr Bush appeared to stick to his earlier warnings to Syria, North Korea, Iran and other countries accused by Washington of helping terrorists or pursuing weapons of mass destruction. He said the United States would not stand idly by in the face of serious danger from the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical arms.

Mr Powell was making the first US official visit to Syria since the heightened tension over US claims that Damascus had been harbouring fugitive members of the deposed Saddam Hussin regime and developing its own weapons of mass destruction.

A State Department official said after the talks that Mr Powell had raised these issues "in a very direct manner". But Mr Powell, who additionally raised Syria's support for Hizbollah and militant Palestinian groups, was also in Damascus to help sell the "road map" for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Meanwhile, plans are taking shape for a multinational force to maintain security in Iraq in three separate zones, led by US, British and Polish forces. Countries that have accepted invitations to contribute – Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Denmark, the Netherlands and Bulgaria – all supported the war. Representatives of these countries will meet British and Polish officials this month to decide what forces each country will contribute.

In Baghdad, the resignation of the city's police chief – at a time of continued shootings between civilians in the capital, and when the US is urging policemen to return to work – remained something of a mystery last night.

The US forces' spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Alan King, merely quoted Mr al-Naimi as saying he wanted to make way for a younger man. He said that Mr al-Naimi had handed over more than $380,000 (£237,000) in cash and 100kg of gold recovered from looters and that about 3,000 Iraqi police were currently patrolling the capital of five million people.