It was the second successful strike on the heart of the regime's propaganda machine after the high-rise building, bearing new scars on its facade, was damaged Saturday.

Meanwhile, big explosions boomed out from the edge of the capital as they have daily since the war began, but Baghdadis were out on the streets again and at work trying to maintain a semblance of normal life.

Journalists in the city could not ascertain the success of the bombing of what US-British forces say are massed troops defending the approaches to Baghdad.

Iraqi anti-aircraft fire opened up periodically.

The state television compound lies near the information ministry in central Baghdad, and television broadcasts were interrupted for about six hours.

However Iraq's satellite television channel, monitored in Dubai, carried on broadcasting the usual diet of unwavering support for President Saddam Hussein, despite a brief breakdown during the morning.

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 Sunday) 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.

At least seven of Baghdad's telephone exchanges have been pounded in recent days knocking out services in some areas, adding to the anguish of residents.

A pall of smoke was seen rising from one of 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 Monday, amid the roaring of warplanes and ack-ack of anti-aircraft fire.

More powerful blasts rocked Baghdad around 2:40 am and later at dawn, following a day of intense strikes on the capital's outskirts.

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," 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.

Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz praised the kamikazes as heroes.

In an interview from Baghdad, Aziz told US network ABC that people who are being threatened by an invasion have "the right to fight by all means" to defend themselves.

"When you fight an invader by whatever means available to you, you are not a terrorist, you are a hero," he said describing them as "freedom fighters against invaders, against colonialists, against imperialists. They are freedom fighters and heroes and we are proud of them."

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 "a gift from Palestine to the heroic people of Iraq."

Iraq's number two, Ezzat Ibrahim, played down the coalition's ground advances, pledging Baghdad's forces would 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