Smoke rises above a building during an air strike in Baghdad

BAGHDAD , April 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. and British aircraft pounded more missiles on Baghdad Tuesday, April 1, as civilian death tolls rose ever higher 13 days after the military aggression against Iraq was unleashed on March 20.

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

A reporter with Agence France-Presse (AFP) saw a missile or smart bomb land into the heart of the Republican Palace complex. The sprawling palace grounds has been a frequent target of the bombardments.

While the BBC correspondent said at least two targets directly associated with the ruling family were struck in the overnight raids.

One of the targets was a compound used by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his younger son, Qusay, and the other was the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, base of Saddam's other son, Uday.

But so far the Iraqi leadership shows no sign of crumbling from within, the British network correspondent asserted.

At U.S. central command in Qatar , a military spokesman admitted that U.S invasion forces opened fire on a civilian vehicle at a checkpoint in Iraq , killing seven women and children.

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 Iraqi elite Republican Guard were dug in to defend the capital from any ground attack.

Foreign reporters said the raids are getting worse and that the latest barrage during night 12 of the war 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 neighborhoods. Balls of smoke slowly merged into a single cloud overhead.

Iraqi official sites appeared to have been hit. Two missiles were seen smashing into the Republican Palace compound along the banks of the Tigris River , which had already 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.

The invasion forces said 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, March 31, 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 neighborhood Monday.

The  United States is sending about 5,000 reinforcements to the strategic southern city of Nasiriya to support the 7,000 marines facing stiff resistance there.

Iraqi authorities say their forces have killed 54 U.S. and British soldiers in the past 24 hours, but there is no independent confirmation of the claim.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said that the invasion forces now hold about 8,000 prisoners of war in Iraq ,  but so far, no high-ranking Iraqi political or military figures have surrendered in his own words.

Red Line "Breached"

Meanwhile, ground war further intensified, with fierce skirmishes between U.S. invasion forces and Republican Guard units at Hindiya, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, the U.S. military said.

The city, on the Euphrates river, is situated between the holy city of Karbala and the ruins of ancient Babylon , 50 miles from Baghdad .

Although the fighting at Hindiyah, in which American forces captured dozens of Iraqi prisoners, was the closest yet to Baghdad , the British daily The Independent quoted a senior military officer at Central Command as warning that the real battle of Baghdad was still to come.

The Republican Guards are identified by red triangle shoulder patches, and their defensive position is known as the "red line" by the Iraqi authorities.

Sources said the fighting was still the result of probing patrols designed to test the Iraqi army's strengths and weaknesses.

"This is the first time we have engaged the Republican Guard. There have been some serious skirmishes and some fierce fighting," said a military spokesman.

"Patrols are moving forward and going in, finding out where they are strong and weak. It is quite frankly designed to keep the Republican Guard on their toes. This is not yet the main battle."

Another senior officer said the U.S. aggression was prepared to pay "a very high price" in terms of casualties to capture the Iraqi capital, adding that the battles to come would perhaps inflict American casualties on the scale of the Second World War.

U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking in Philadelphia , said: "Day by day we are moving closer to Baghdad ."

However the Iraqi forces remained defiant, the British paper said.

The Iraqi television showed Monday footage of Saddam Hussein alongside his two sons.

The Pentagon said last night that 8,000 precision-guided bombs have been dropped since the war began – 3,000 of them since the weekend.