The attack came after the fiercest US-led air strikes to date battered the Baghdad area with bombs and cruise missiles early Friday, hammering Saddam Hussein's communications sites and crack troops guarding the city that Iraq vows is impregnable.

The massive raids marked a new intensity as the United States and Britain backed away from hopes of a quick victory in the war to topple the Iraqi president.

State television showed interviews with three Iraqi men it said were spies being paid to identify targets for coalition attacks.

It was impossible to verify the toll of the market air raid. The Iraqi information ministry said only that a "large number" of civilians had been killed and injured.

The incident came just two days after missiles crashed into a housing block in a working class neighborhood of the capital, killing 14, and amid mounting accusations by Iraqi officials and Baghdad residents that the US-led coalition is bombing the capital with no regard for civilian life.

"Most of the victims are women, children and old people," Dr. Harqi Razzuqi, head of An-Nur hospital, told AFP, adding that most of the injured were in a serious state.

Arab networks showed haunting images of blood-spattered corpses and wailing women slapping themselves in grief. A morgue worker pulled open a drawer that held two small bodies, a lifeless boy nestled in the legs of a lifeless girl.

Razzuqi said the strikes hit An-Nasser market, close to the hospital, adding that there was not a military target in the area.

Iraqi authorities have repeatedly accused US and British forces of deliberately targeting civilian areas in their invasion of the country.

US officials have in turn charged Saddam's regime with placing legitimate military targets such as weapons and munitions amidst the civilian population.

The news of the raid on the market came amid a fresh wave of heavy bombardment, hitting Baghdad around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT).

The sky over Baghdad was still filled with smoke earlier Friday after hours of pounding from Tomahawk cruise missiles and 1,000-pound (500-kilo) bombs, as the coalition took advantage of a break in bad weather to step up the air assault.

Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf put the civilian death toll from the nighttime attacks on Baghdad at seven, with 92 wounded.

Witnesses said a separate attack on a residential neighborhood Friday killed eight civilians and injured 33.

"We had first thought that the Americans wanted to show a good image of themselves by avoiding civilian targets, but now we changed our minds," Fahd Alawi, a 38-year-old upholstery-shop owner, told AFP after a sleepless night in the capital.

"This a big mistake because now the people have all rallied behind Saddam Hussein and to the defense of their nation against such criminals invading and bombing their country and civilian population," he said.

In another incident elsewhere in the capital, residents said Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners shot down a US drone. An AFP photographer said it destroyed the roof of a small house but it was unclear if there were injuries.

US officials said they were targeting elite Republican Guards defending the approach to Baghdad. Coalition ground troops farther south rested and re-armed before trying to make a push toward the capital.

A leading Iraqi imam, holding a rifle as he led weekly prayers, called on Muslims and Arabs worldwide to launch a "jihad" or holy war to protest the US-led onslaught against Iraq.

"Failing to join the jihad would be disobeying the orders of God," Abdul Ghaffur al-Qaissi said.

Stiffer than anticipated resistance from lightly-armed Iraqi irregulars to US-British ground forces has raised the specter of bloody street combat in the capital, as well as continuing attacks on lenghty US supply lines to the rear.

Pentagon officials announced Thursday that the United States would more than double its ranks engaged in Iraq, with 120,000 troops ready to join the 90,000 already on the ground.

US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday played down expectations of a rapid victory after the dogged resistance of Iraqi forces.

The war would last "however long it takes to win," Bush vowed in a joint press conference.

WAR.WIRE