Describing the attack as a massacre, the network's correspondent in the Iraqi capital said there were many people still missing in the poorly-inhabited area in the western Sou'la district during the missile attack apparently by a B2 bomber.

Iraqi sources said Cruise or Tomahawk missiles were used in the new Anglo-American bombardment.

Shortly afterwards, the U.S.-British aircraft carried out fresh raids on Baghdad, the correspondent said, saying he saw three rockets falling from the raiding jet fighters.

In the meanwhile, intensive U.S. and British bombing of Baghdad late Thursday, March 27, blasted communication centers, as invasion forces flew more transport vehicles into Kurdish-held northern Iraq.

The al-Ulwiyya telephone center on a main avenue in the central Saadoun neighborhood was destroyed, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

At 3.10pm, hell broke loose again on this eighth day of the U.S.-led war, British daily The Mirror reported Friday.

Glass was shattered in nearby homes and shops while a gigantic billboard on the rooftop of an adjacent building was broken.

Telephone lines were, however, still working in the southern sector of the capital which is usually fed by al-Ulwiyya.

The al-Rashid telephone center feeding central Baghdad and located in the capital's oldest commercial street of the same name had a large gaping hole in the wall of the ground floor. Rubble blocked the main road, forcing cars to seek alternative routes.

On Thursday, March 27, the invasion forces destroyed the al-Maamun Communication Center located near the al-Nusur roundabout, next to the destroyed al-Salam palace in Saddam's presidential compound that has repeatedly come under U.S.-British fire since the launch of the onslaught on March 20.

Baghdad was rocked by explosions throughout the night and early Friday as the invasion forces kept up the pressure, with successive raids leaving columns of smoke billowing from several spots inside the city of five million and on the outskirts.

Explosions shook the Baghdad hotel housing the international press corps at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), although the targets of the new raids could not immediately be identified, an AFP correspondent reported.

An Iraqi soldier stands in front of the destroyed communication center in Baghdad

Also, U.S. and British invasion forces launched new air strikes Friday against the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, destroying an Iraqi command post, an AFP photographer in the area said.

At least 10 explosions were heard in the city, a key Euphrates River passageway where U.S. marines braved withering Iraqi fire earlier this week to cross over and head north in their way to invade and occupy Iraq.

Officers said war planes dropped at least one 2,000 pound (900-kilo) bomb. They said the raids in the center and to the north of Nasiriyah destroyed the Iraqi post in Nasiriyah but there was no word on casualties.

On the northern front, Invasion forces flew more transport vehicles into Kurdish-held northern Iraq overnight but no amour, an AFP correspondent observed.

Dozens of trucks and Humvees were assembled near the landing strip at Harir, northeast of Arbil, and two more Sea Stallion helicopters were on the tarmac, taking the total to four.

Around 8:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), U.S. troops seemed to be preparing to board some 30 trucks to move out of Harir for an unknown destination, while soldiers armed with automatic weapons stood guard around the perimeter.

More than 1,000 U.S. paratroops were dropped into Iraqi Kurdistan early Thursday to open a second front against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

But U.S. operations there have been limited by Ankara's refusal to allow the use of Turkish soil for a deployment into northern Iraq.

Iraqi Kurd rebels had reportedly advanced to within 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of the northern oil capital Kirkuk after Iraqi government forces abandoned their positions, Kurdish military sources told AFP.

Meanwhile, stiffer than anticipated resistance from lightly armed Iraqi irregulars in the south has raised the specter of bloody street combat in the capital, as well as continuing attacks on U.S. supply lines to the rear.

The leading edge of the U.S. forces was expected to pause to rest, rearm and refuel while U.S. air strikes soften the Republican Guards forming the defensive perimeter around the city, officials said.

Pentagon officials announced Thursday the United States would more than double its ranks engaged in Iraq, with 120,000 troops ready to join the 90,000 already on the ground.

But Lieutenant General William Wallace, the top U.S. army ground commander in Iraq, told The Washington Post that Iraqi tactics had stalled the drive toward Baghdad.

"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," he said at the Forward Operating Base Shell, in Iraq.