The "Screaming Eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division late Friday struck the "vicinity" of the city, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of the Iraqi capital, its Aviation Brigade commander, Colonel Greg Gass, told AFP.

The joint army-airforce strikes followed a day of intense aerial bombardment of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul.

But in a major blow to the coalition's global public relations battle, at least 30 people were killed and 47 wounded in an air raid on the capital Friday in the fiercest day of strikes since the war began on March 20.

Meanwhile, the US army's 3rd Infantry Division, backed by the 101st Airborne Division, was as close as 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, while marines advanced north in two prongs between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers.

However, stiff resistance, bad weather and long, vulnerable supply lines have significantly slowed their advance and prompted the coalition to publicly defend its strategy amid concern that all is not going to plan.

US President George W. Bush insisted Friday that US forces were "making great progress" and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the coalition has "air supremacy" over 95 percent of Iraq and that 35 to 40 percent of the country's territory is no longer under the control of the Iraqi regime.

In the north, Iraqi Kurd rebels advanced Friday to within 16 kilometersmiles) of the northern oil capital Kirkuk in the first major movement on the northern front against Baghdad, their commanders said.

Fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) captured the town of Qarah Anjir, situated in hills to the east of Kirkuk, after clearing scores of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines left behind by the retreating Iraqi army.

"The Iraqi army is finished. They were ordered to pull back to defend the city," Rostam Hamid Rahim, a top PUK commander, told reporters, adding that his forces were determined to seize Kirkuk, despite the risk of angering Washington and especially Ankara.

But the Iraqi forces near Kirkuk were quick to signal that their battle was not over. A salvo of around 10 rockets slammed into Chamchamal, east of Qarah Anjir, injuring at least one person, a PUK security official said.

Also Friday, thousands of PUK fighters backed by US special forces swept into territory held by Ansar al-Islam, a hardline group allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, Kurdish officials said.

Around the central-southern cities of Najaf, Nasiriyah and Al-Samawa, Iraq had deployed thousands of militiamen who were "fighting tenaciously," said one officer with the Third Infantry Division.

A US military spokesman at the forward command center in Qatar said four marines went missing during a "combat operation" in Nasiriyah.

Meanwhile, British forces had their hands full in the southern port of Basra, where Iraqi militia began shooting at civilians who were trying to flee in their hundreds Friday, British military spokesmen charged.

Another British spokesman Major Will McKinlay said that centres were being set up on the outskirts of the city to provide food and water to the "hundreds" of fleeing civilians who would be given safe passage.

But in what will be another psychological setback for the coalition, a British soldier was killed and three were injured on Friday in a friendly fire incident, Britain's Press Association (PA) reported, citing defence sources.

It said the soldier was killed after an American A10 tankbuster plane targeted two armoured vehicles near Basra. Defence ministry officials in London confirmed that an investigation was underway.

Further south, the first mass shipment of humanitarian aid arrived aboard the British naval support vessel Sir Galahad, which docked Friday in Umm Qasr.

WAR.WIRE