Smoke rises from the presidential compound in central Baghdad following an air attack

BAGHDAD, March 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S.-led occupation warplanes pounded the Iraqi capital at dawn Monday, March 31, with loud explosions rocking the city.

Powerful blasts reverberated across Baghdad around 5.20 am (0220 GMT), triggering retaliatory fire from Iraqi anti-aircraft guns, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Meanwhile, a missile hit Iraq's information ministry in the early hours of Monday, two days after the building was partially damaged in a first strike.

Iraqi television broadcasts were interrupted in Baghdad during the morning, but it was not clear if the latest missile strike had caused the breakdown. The state television compound lies near the ministry in central Baghdad.

U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said a Tomahawk cruise missile was launched at the building near the Tigris River at about 2 a.m. (2300 GMT) in a bid "to reduce the Hussein regime's command and control capabilities".

"Battle damage assessment is ongoing," a Centcom statement said.

At least one missile had slammed into the presidential compound in central Baghdad just after midnight Monday.

A pall of smoke was seen rising from the sprawling palace on the banks of the Tigris River after the strike, following at least eight loud explosions around Baghdad and the roaring of warplanes and anti-aircraft fire.

More blasts were reported at around 2.40 am and later at dawn.

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 hotel.

Iraq's satellite television channel, monitored in Dubai, was still broadcasting Monday.

Warplanes Bomb Mosul

Meanwhile, occupation warplanes bombed Iraq's main northern city of Mosul at dawn Monday, the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera said.

The Qatar-based television's correspondent in the city said the buzz of warplanes could be heard overhead at 4:10 am (0110 GMT), adding that the bombs had fallen in the central part of the city.

Footage of columns of smoke rising from the outskirts of Mosul was aired by Al-Jazeera, which gave no details on the targets.

Some 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Baghdad, Mosul has been the target of occupation air strikes every day 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.

More than 50 civilians were killed or wounded in a raid on the city Thursday, March 27, Al-Jazeera reported.

Major Assault On Basra

In another development, hundreds of British Royal Marines launched a major assault, known as James Operation, on Iraq’s second-largest city, Basra, to secure a suburb southeast of Iraq's southern capital Basra, AFP said according to British officers.

Some 600 men from 40 Commando attacked Abu Al Khasib late Sunday, March 30, in the first all-out British assault by a full commando since the Falklands War in 1982 and the operation was to continue Monday.

British troops suffered an unknown number of injuries, some serious, although at least 300 prisoners of war were taken and a number of Iraqi tanks, armoured troop carriers and bunkers destroyed.

But the Iraqi fighters in the Basra region counter-attacked later in the day when three patrol vessels attacked a Royal Marine landing craft on the Basra canal, 20 miles (30 kilometres) to the south.

The British vessel was hit and set alight by a rocket-propelled grenade and four of its crew were slightly injured. One of the Iraqi vessels was then hit by British forces with two Milan anti-tank missiles and sunk.

Whereas British forces have staged raids into Basra in Warrior armoured vehicles over the last few days, the infantry assault on Abu Al Khasib was quite different -- a direct attempt to secure a significant suburb which houses 30,000 people.

The invading marines were supported by Challenger II main battle tanks and Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles while overhead attack helicopters flew combat patrols and artillery fired barrage after barrage of support fire.

British AS90 self-propelled howitzers were called in to deal with 21 Iraqi vehicles -- some believed to be T55 tanks -- to the north of the Shatt Al-Arab which could have posed a threat by providing reinforcements to Iraqi fighters.

British commandos captured five senior Iraqi officers, but none of them was a general as had been initially reported, a British military spokeswoman said.

"We have got five senior Iraqi officers but none of them is a general," Major Catherine Convery said.