It was the second successful strike on the heart of the regime's propaganda machine after the high-rise building was damaged Saturday.

Iraqi television broadcasts were interrupted in Baghdad during the morning, but it was not clear if the latest missile had caused the breakdown. The state television compound lies near the ministry in central Baghdad.

Iraq's satellite television channel, monitored in Dubai, had managed to broadcast briefly on Monday with the usual diet of unwavering support for President Saddam Hussein, but later went off the air.

US Central Command (Centcom) said a Tomahawk cruise missile was launched at the building near the Tigris river at about 2:00 am (2300 GMT) in a bid "to reduce the Hussein regime's command and control capabilities,"

"Battle damage assessment is ongoing," a Centcom statement said.

Foreign journalists who were housed in a press centre on the ground floor of the ministry have moved out and the authorities have opened a media centre in a city hotel.

Baghdad's telephone infrastructure has been repeatedly pounded in recent days, knocking out services in some areas.

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

At least one missile had slammed into the presidential compound in central Baghdad just after midnight, amid the roaring of warplanes and ack-ack of anti-aircraft fire.

More powerful blasts rocked Baghdad around 2:40 am (2340 GMT) and later at dawn, following 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.

Coalition warplanes also bombed the northern city of Mosul at dawn, the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera said, showing footage of columns of smoke rising from the outskirts.

The Qatar-based television's correspondent in the city said the buzz of warplanes could be heard overhead at 4:10 am (0110 GMT), but said the bombs had not fallen in the centre.

Mosul, 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Baghdad, has been the target of daily air strikes since March 21 as Britain and the United States attempt to soften up its defences ahead of the long-awaited opening of a second front in the north.

The United States announced Sunday troops were within 95 kilometresmiles) of Baghdad, but Iraq vowed to meet the invaders with suicide attacks in line with punishing 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 be carried out not 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 on Sunday "a gift from Palestine to the heroic people of Iraq."

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.

WAR.WIRE