Images of Iraq taken by commercial satellites are allowing the public an unprecedented close-up view of the conflict.

Since the last Gulf war, several high-resolution satellites have been launched with the aim of providing detailed views of the Earth for town planning, pollution monitoring and environmental management.

Now, these spacecraft are turning their lenses on Iraq and their images show the conflict zone in remarkable detail, revealing bomb damage, burning oil trenches and sandstorms.

A series of images of central Baghdad taken over the past few days has just been released by Digitalglobe, the company that manages the Quickbird satellite.

Quickbird was launched on 18 October, 2001, and is said to produce the highest resolution images of the Earth from space outside the military. Details as small as 0.9 of a metre can be seen.
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For a wider view of the region, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has released images of the sandstorms that swept the region.

Another view of satellite imagery is available via the Near Real-time Satellite Images of Iraq website maintained by Kinetic Analysis Corporation.

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