The Republican Guard, the best equipped and most loyal of President Saddam Hussein's forces, are reported to have created a ring of armour around the capital.

Laser-guided bombs and Maverick missiles took out some of their biggest guns 60 miles (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad on Friday, said Flight Lieutenant Scott Morley, a Harrier pilot.

He said he joined a queue of coalition planes including A10 tank busters and American F16 and F18s to take his turn to bomb the division which ground forces are gathering to attack.

"Our forces were a good 30 miles (50 kilometres) or so away and well out of their range so we went in to soften them up before we engaged," Morley said.

"There was fantastic visibility and I could even see the camels on the ground as well as a number of bomb craters around the encampment. It is not carpet-bombing, it is still precision stuff. I got two good hits on Medina Division artillery pieces.

"I saw the impact myself as the bombs hit. There are a lot of jets up there working the same area and we are hitting them hard so they will lose the will to fight and so we don't take such big losses on the ground when we go in."

US AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships have "degraded significantly " the Iraqi division defending the approaches to Baghdad, senior US military officers say.

(ATTN: Pool copy)

WAR.WIRE