Intense bombardments also kept pounding the outskirts of the city, where four divisions of President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard were hunkered down to defend the capital from any ground attack by US and British forces.

AFP reporters said the raids are growing more intense and that the barrage late Monday, on night 12 of the US-led war to topple Saddam, seemed to be the heaviest yet to have hit the battered city's downtown area.

The ominous whistle of the missiles was heard in the sky before a series of explosions shook the city, appearing to knock out electricity in entire neighbourhoods. Balls of smoke slowly merged into a single cloud overhead.

Official sites of the regime appeared to have been hit. Two missiles were seen smashing into Saddam's sprawling presidential compound along the banks of the Tigris River, which had aleady been pounded earlier in the day.

The eerie silence in the aftermath of the raid was near total, broken only by the wail of ambulance sirens. Their flashing red lights could be seen criss-crossing the main avenue along the river.

Coalition forces say thousands of attack sorties have been carried out since the war began March 20, with 1,000 on Sunday alone. The information ministry was hit earlier Monday, and domestic television was knocked out for several hours.

Foreign journalists who were housed in a press center on the ground floor of the ministry have moved out and the authorities have opened media offices in a city hotel. Hundreds of thousands of phone lines have been bombed out of action.

Hospital sources said coalition bombing killed six Iraqis and wounded dozens of others in a Baghdad residential neighborhood Monday.

Elseshwere, an AFP journalist was accompanied to Janabiyah village on the southeast edge of Baghdad, where residents said 11 children were among 20 people killed when missiles hit five sleeping families on a farm Saturday night.

The victims had already been buried according to Muslim tradition but the stench of death still hung over the farm. One building had been flattened, and the carcasses of dead animals were black with swarms of flies.

Schoolbooks soaked in blood testified to the carnage.

The United States and Britain say the war will not be finished until Saddam's 24-year grip on power is ended. State television, as it has done many times since the war began, underscored Saddam was still in control of the country.

It showed him chairing a meeting of top aides including Uday, his elder son, who was being shown on television for the first time since the war began. It said the footage had been recorded Monday.

Uday heads the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary militia, intensely loyal fighters who have joined regular Iraqi forces in mounting fierce resistance to US and British ground troops in the south hoping to push their way to Baghdad.

Iraq says Baghdad will be a "cemetery" for coalition forces and claims more than 4,000 people from across the Arab world have come to the capital, ready to "martyr" themselves in suicide attacks.

AFP reporters in Lebanon and Jordan saw dozens of volunteers board buses headed for Iraq to volunteer for the war. A senior US commander said US forces were stopping people from travelling through the Western desert towards Baghdad.

Late Monday US soldiers opened fire on a vehicle that failed to stop for a checkpoint in the area of Najaf. Seven people, all women and children, were killed.

An Iraqi military spokesman said at least 54 US and British soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours, most in the south of the country.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers warned that a long campaign for Baghdad should be expected, while US President George W. Bush said American victory was certain.

"Many dangers lie ahead, but day by day we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day, we are moving closer to victory," he said in Philadelphia.

The United States announced Sunday troops were within 95 kilometersmiles) of the Iraqi capital.

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

Mosul, 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Baghdad, has been the target of daily air strikes since March 21. Britain and the United States are expected to open a second front in the north.

WAR.WIRE