"Our attacks against anything in Baghdad are precision attacks ... against specific regime or against a military complex, something that has military relevance," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said.

"Unlike previous wars in history, there is no bombing of a city, there is no bombing of a population," he told reporters in response to a question during a briefing at US Central Command forward headquarters.

Brooks acknowledged "that the regime has some different evidence" but said it stemmed from "what they've been doing to their own population."

US commanders and spokesmen say that forces loyal to President Saddam Hussein may be deliberately harming their own people and then blaming the coalition for the actions.

Central Command also said in a statement late Thursday that coalition strikes had not targeted Baghdad's electric networks.

Most of the Iraqi capital was plunged into darkness at around 8:30 pmfrom a power cut, AFP correspondents reported, after saying they heard for the first time artillery fire coming from the southern outskirts of the city.

Coalition bombing raids around the outskirts of the capital appeared to have been intensively stepped up after midday (0900 GMT) on Thursday, as US commanders said their troops were 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Baghdad's center.

The heated comments by Brooks came in the face of reports of heavy civilian casualties in and around Baghdad in recent days.

Earlier Thursday, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf reported that in the latest US-British bombing of Baghdad 27 civilians were killed and 193 wounded.

US military investigators are, meanwhile, looking into the attack on Hilla, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, where the local hospital director said 33 people died and 300 were hurt in a coalition air strike on Tuesday.

They are also investigating reports that coalition planes struck a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Witnesses said one person was killed and a dozen people were wounded when aircraft targeting the site of Baghdad's international trade fair blasted the clinic.

WAR.WIRE