Around a dozen missiles crashed into the Iraqi capital overnight and around 09:00 (0600 GMT) the main presidential palace compound was hit for the second consecutive day.

An AFP reporter saw a missile or smart bomb crash into the heart of the Republican Palace complex on the 13th day of the war.

The sprawling palace grounds, a potent symbol of President Saddam Hussein's grip on power, has been a frequent target of the bombardments.

At US central command in Qatar, a military spokesamn admitted that US troops, fearful of a fresh suicide attack, opened fire on a civilian vehicle at a checkpoint in Iraq, killing seven women and children.

The shooting occurred at a checkpoint manned by soldiers from the US Army's Third Infantry Division at Najaf, 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Baghdad, on Monday afternoon, Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens said.

The admission came after villagers on the edge of the capital reported 20 more civilians dead, 11 of them children, from the blitz.

Intense bombardments also kept pounding the outskirts of the city, where four divisions of Saddam's elite Republican Guard were dug in to defend the capital from any ground attack.

AFP reporters said the raids are getting worse and that the latest barrage during night 12 of the war to topple Saddam seemed to be the heaviest yet to have hit the city centre.

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 the Republican Palace 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 broken only by the wail of ambulance sirens, their flashing red lights 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 centre 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 neighbourhood Monday.

Elsewhere, an AFP journalist was accompanied to Janabiyah village on the southeastern 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 Saddam Fedayeen 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.

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.

WAR.WIRE