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.

It was impossible to verify the exact toll of the air raid on An-Nasser market in the Shiite Muslim neighbourhood of Al-Shula in northwestern Baghdad on what was the second weekly Muslim day of rest since the US-led war was launched on March 20.

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. Haqi Razzuqi, head of An-Nur hospital, told AFP, adding that most of the injured were in a serious state.

Razzuqi said there was not a military target in the area around the market, close to the hospital.

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 US command headquarters directing the war on Iraq had no comment early Saturday on the market raid.

"We don't have any comment on that," said Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens. "We're still trying to learn the truth of the matter."

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

The later series of strikes hit around 11:45 pm (2045 GMT), targeting a building in the main presidential palace in central Baghdad and anti-aircraft batteries quickly responded, an AFP correspondent said.

That came on the heels of a strike on Mosul at around 11:40 pm (2040 GMT), according to the Mosul correspondent of Doha-based Arabic-language television Al-Jazeera.

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.

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, with Bush vowing the war would last "however long it takes to win.".

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