About a dozen explosions shook Baghdad and its suburbs as dawn broke over the city

BAGHDAD, March 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Baghdad and its outskirts were pounded by Anglo-American air strikes in the small hours of Wednesday, March 26, targeting elite Republican Guard strongholds blocking the advance on the capital and television stations which rally people against the invaders.

About a dozen explosions shook Baghdad and its suburbs as dawn broke over the city, an AFP reporter in the city said, one of them raising a huge plume of smoke near the ministry of information and the state television studios, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Baghdad area also took a fearsome battering as night fell.

Some of the strikes were apparently aimed at Iraqi state television in the city and the information ministry, which controls all media in Iraq .

The latest explosions shook the city around 5:00 am (0200 GMT), and television pictures showed fires raging around the area near the ministry and the nearby state television studios as the sun came up.

The television was off for around 45 minutes on Tuesday night before resuming transmissions until the normal night-time closedown.

The youth channel of President Saddam Hussein's son Uday did not return to air after the strikes. Iraq TV sources said transmitters had been hit.

Iraqi satellite television monitored outside the country was also disrupted, flashing incomplete images occasionally while remaining blank most of the time.

State television angered the United States on Monday by showing two pilots of a downed U.S. Apache helicopter, and said they were prisoners of war.

The day before it aired footage and brief questioning by officials of five shaken prisoners of war, as well as at least four dead U.S. soldiers in a makeshift morgue.

The pictures were believed to have been calculated to strike at the pride and prestige of U.S.-led forces.

Washington complained the broadcasts were in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

In Washington , the Pentagon refused to confirm whether it sought to destroy or interfere with Iraqi television.

"We never discuss targets," Pentagon information director Bryan Whitman said.

"We take extreme efforts to make sure we minimize civilian casualties as we take out appropriate military targets that will help us achieve our objectives," Whitman said.

He refused to say whether an electromagnetic pulse, known as an E-bomb, used to paralyze computer and electrical networks, would be deployed in addition to precision guided missiles.

CBS News reported that the U.S. Air Force had blasted Iraqi television with the experimental electromagnetic pulse device to try and knock off its signal.

The intense bombardments also appeared to target the southern suburbs, where elite Republican Guard units protect the approach to Baghdad .

AFP correspondents heard U.S. and British warplanes roaring at high altitude over Baghdad , but the aircraft were invisible above the dark clouds emanating from fuel trenches ignited by the Iraqi authorities on Saturday, apparently to block visibility during the air attacks.

A U.S. Navy spokesman aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier said a barrage of 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles was launched at the city and surrounding areas from ships in the Gulf and the Red Sea .

Air strikes have already left about 30 civilians dead and more than 400 wounded in and around Baghdad , according to Iraqi figures.

In the biggest land battle so far of the campaign, a U.S. defense claimed between 150 and 300 Iraqis were reported killed east of An-Najaf on Tuesday, March 25, about 200 kilometers south of Baghdad, in the engagement with a "dismounted force" of Iraqis.

The official said the fight erupted after an element of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment came under rocket propelled grenade fire that disabled a tank and damaged two other vehicles.

There were no U.S. casualties, the official alleged, adding it was not clear whether the force was regular Iraqi army or not.

The U.S. account could not be independently verified, asserted AFP.

U.S.-British troops pushing forward from the southern desert regions have had to battle blinding sandstorms and encountered fierce Iraqi resistance on reaching cities.

Reports said Iraqi elite troops have mainly retrenched into Baghdad and the northern hometown of Tikrit.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf repudiated British allegations of a revolt in Basra as "provocative lies".

In Basra , the correspondent of Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network, also said he had seen no sign of a rebellion.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had heard reports of an uprising but had no confirmation.

Two British troops were killed and two severely wounded in a friendly fire incident between two of the British army's high-tech Challenger II tanks in fighting outside Basra , British officials said.

Twenty British troops have now been killed in war accidents and combat. There are about 16 American dead but several are missing and seven are believed held prisoner.

The battle for Baghdad appears to be nearing a critical phase, with U.S. troops backed by Apache helicopter gunships primed for an all-out assault on the Republican Guard.

U.S. officers said 30 to 40 Apaches, the U.S. military's most fearsome attack helicopter, had made initial runs against the Iraqi crack troops.

The U.S. Third Infantry Division was closest to Baghdad , positioned near Kerbala, about 100km from the capital, field reports said, with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division crawling up from the southwest and the Marines to the east.

But their advance through the desert was slowed by the strong winds and swirling sand.

A U.S. Apache and a Black Hawk helicopter attached to the Third Infantry Division went missing in southern Iraq when visibility was cut to 100 meters (yards), said a senior U.S. officer.

40 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at Baghdad and surrounding areas from ships in the Gulf and the Red Sea

U.S. President George W. Bush claimed his forces were "making good progress" but U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned the war was "much closer to the beginning than the end."

"Our coalition is on a steady advance. We're making good progress," Bush said in a speech at the Pentagon in which he asked Congress for 74.7 billion dollars (70.13 billion euros) to cover the costs of the war.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, also insisted that "the toughest fight is ahead of us" and the resistance will get stronger as troops approach Baghdad .

British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced meanwhile that he would go to Washington for talks with Bush on Wednesday.

B-52 Heading For Iraq

A U.S. air force B-52 bomber was seen taking off early Wednesday from RAF Fairford, in the west of England , a springboard for long-range bombing missions against Iraq .

Live images from Sky News television showed the aircraft taking off at 5:45 am (0545 GMT).

Fourteen B-52 bombers have been stationed at RAF Fairford since early March, and have been seen taking off daily since Friday to carry out bombing runs over Iraq, about six hours' flying time away.