A pall of smoke was seen rising from Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's sprawling presidential palace on the banks of the Tigris river following at least eight loud explosions around the Iraqi capital shortly after midnight.

A few hours later more powerful blasts rocked the city, coming on the back of a day of intense strikes on the capital's outskirts, where elite Iraqi units are believed to be concentrated, lying in wait for an impending coalition push.

As the United States announced Sunday its troops were within 95 kilometres (60 miles) of Baghdad, Iraq boldly vowed to meet the invaders with suicide attacks -- a sign of the guerrilla tactics that have impeded the coalition's push.

General Hazem Al-Rawi said more than 4,000 volunteers had come from every Arab nation "without exception", ready to follow in the footsteps of an Iraqi officer who killed four US soldiers in a kamikaze attack in southern Iraq on Saturday.

"Martyr operations will continue and they will not be carried out only by Iraqis but also by thousands of Arab volunteers who have come to Baghdad," he said.

They have "pledged never to return to their homelands, insisting that they remain in Iraq after their martyrdom," he said. "It is our duty to chase the invaders at any price."

The radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad announced Sunday it had sent a first batch of suicide bombers to Iraq.

It called a suicide attack in the Israeli town of Netanya which killed the bomber and injured 26 people was "a gift from Palestine to the heroic people of Iraq."

General Tommy Franks, the head of the US Central Command running the war in Iraq, said he found Iraq's endorsement of suicide attacks "remarkable".

"It's not at all illogical that a dying regime would undertake such acts as suicide bombing," Franks said at a briefing at command headquarters in Qatar.

The top US military commander, Air Force General Richard Myers, said the coalition would "tighten the noose" on Baghdad but not hurry to confront Saddam's forces.

"Nobody ever promised a short war," Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told NBC television. "I think the toughest part is ahead of us as we take on the Republican Guard around Baghdad."

Iraq's number two Ezzat Ibrahim played down the coalition's ground advances, pledging that Baghdad's forces wound eventually surround US and British troops and force them to "flee to the empty desert where there lives no bird or tree."

"What will determine the outcome of the battle is the price the enemies pay in losses of men and equipment, not the fact that they control an inch here or there in Iraq," said Ibrahim, quoted by state television.

Arab public opinion has been galvanised by Iraq's strong military resistance to coalition forces, as well as images of dead civilians, including babies, broadcast repeatedly by Arab television networks.

Baghdad claims coalition bombardments are responsible. The coalition, however, says that Iraq may be behind at least some of the deaths, and alleges that Iraqi workers are under orders to remove evidence that would support that claim.

"A large number of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles have been malfunctioning. Many have failed to hit their targets and have fallen back onto Baghdad before exploding," a British government spokesman said.

An AFP reporter Sunday saw a 50-year-old man wounded when a missile of unknown origin hit a communications center in a residential neighbourhood as workers were clearing rubble from previous strikes. Another person was treated for shock.

Besides Saddam's palaces and formations outside the city, US-led forces have also attacked the information ministry, paramilitary training grounds and other sites in Baghdad seen as helping the Iraqi leader preserve his 24-year stranglehold on power.

WAR.WIRE