BAGHDAD, March 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Unleashing its fearsome "shock and awe" air campaign, the U.S. occupation forces rocked Baghdad late Friday, March 21, with about 320 missiles that turned vast sections of the Iraqi capital into an inferno.

"Approximately 320 missiles have been fired at targets in and around Baghdad," Rear Admiral Matthew Moffit said aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

He said the missiles and bombs had been expected to hit their targets virtually simultaneously, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The intention is to convince the regime that it's time to leave, and if they don't then we will try to take them out by force," he Moffit claimed.

Aircraft from the USS Constellation, another carrier in the Gulf, were also participating in the air campaign, Moffit said.

Tomahawks were fired from four guided missile cruisers, four guided missile destroyers and two submarines, he said.

The missiles can carry a 1,000-pound warhead and are designed to fly at extremely low altitudes at high subsonic speed toward "high value" or heavily defended land targets, according to a U.S. Navy website.

About five minutes after the first cruise missiles exploded in Baghdad at about 1800 GMT, the first of some 20 attack and support aircraft flew off Kitty Hawk's flight deck and into the darkness toward Iraq.

Television viewers around the world were able to view live coverage of a ferocious and terrifying aerial assault on the Iraqi capital.

The air was thick with clouds of smoke as missile after missile whistled through the sky, followed by furious explosions as they slammed into targets across Baghdad, including the Republican Palace.

Tracer bullets from Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners shot across the evening sky but they were facing a ferocious onslaught of high-tech weaponry.

It was impossible to count how many buildings had been hit. Balls of choking black smoke rose in the sky as Baghdad was repeatedly pounded.

This city of five million had been bracing to feel the full wrath of American military might since early Thursday, March 20, when the United States began an unjustified war of aggression on the Arab country.

AFP reporters said several buildings in the Republican Palace compound were on fire after coming under intense and repeated bombardment.

At least five missiles appeared to have hit the compound after reporters said war planes had started up their engines and roared off from a U.S. aircraft carrier, part of a huge U.S. military presence at the ready, waiting in the Gulf.

Defiant in the face of the onslaught, Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed vowed that no force would break Iraq.

"No force in the world will conquer us because we are defending our country, our principles and our religion. We are, no doubt, the victors," Ahmed said, his voice sporadically drowned out by violent explosions.

Announcing the launch of the "shock and awe" air campaign on Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld warned it would be "unhelpful" if large numbers of Turkish troops moved into northern Iraq.

"We have special forces and units connected to Kurdish forces in the north and you can be certain we have advised the Turkish government and Turkish forces it would be unhelpful if they went into the north in large numbers," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

He conceded that this may be one of the "many issues" that have stalled Turkey's decision to permit U.S. overflights.

Rumsfeld boasted there was "no comparison" to be made between massive U.S.-led bombings of Baghdad and those of World War II.

"There is no comparison. The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict," Rumsfeld said, describing any comparison drawn between the two conflicts as "unfortunate and inaccurate."

General Richard Myers, for his part, said U.S. special operations forces have taken control of an airfield in western Iraq and secured several border positions.

"In the last 24 hours, special operations forces have seized an airfield in Western Iraq and secured border positions in several key locations," the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff claimed at a Pentagon press conference.

As bombs rained fire on Baghdad reports came in of a string of blasts in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

The U.S. military lost its first confirmed casualty, a U.S. marine, and media reports said one other U.S. marine had been killed in action.

Eight British Royal Marines and four U.S. airmen were killed early Friday when a U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed in Kuwait, during deployment operations to the Fao peninsula in southern Iraq.

Pentagon officials refused to comment on Iraqi claims that a U.S. or British aircraft had been shot down.

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense said forces are also moving on Iraq's second city, Basra, has said.

The advance on the city came after U.S. Marines reached Iraq's only deep-water port at Umm Qasr in the south-east.

In another operation, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division advanced into the center of Iraq and is moving towards the town of Nasiriya, a key crossing point over the Euphrates river on the way to Baghdad.

The BBC's Gavin Hewitt, who is traveling with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, says they can see the lights of the town of Nasiriya after encountering Iraqi resistance.

"Umm Qasr has been overwhelmed by the U.S. Marines and now is in coalition hands," Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the UK General Staff, told a news conference in London.