Saddam's palace destroyed

Huge explosions rocked Baghdad this afternoon as coalition bombers stepped up their onslaught on the Iraqi capital.

A cloud of white smoke poured from a palace used by Saddam Hussein's son Qusay. Blasts were also heard to the south of the city and to the west in the direction of Saddam International Airport.

Allied jets screamed low overhead and Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries hammered away at the attackers.

Allied artillery also opened up on Iraqi positions to the south of the city. One onlooker said: "The artillery fire is suddenly very intense. We can hear it coming from the south. It's unusual."

Qusay's palace was also hit in pre-dawn bombing raids in the heaviest aerial attacks staged so far.

In the earlier bombing attacks Iraqi domestic television went off air for just over an hour after the bomb damage.

A phone exchange was flattened and fire raged yards from a shopping mall named after Saddam's birthday - 28 April. The ministry of information building was destroyed.

In the last 24 hours about 1,800 bombing runs were made which is almost double the daily average of sorties.

In a clear signal that the Allies are preparing for the decisive push to Baghdad, US sources said more than 60 per cent of the air assaults were aimed at "degrading the capabilities" of three Republican Guard divisions.

Allied forces also launched a series of dramatic ground attacks today on Iraqi positions.

In one assault, bombers, helicopter gunships and tanks stormed the town of Shatra, north of Nasiriyah.

Their "search and destroy" mission was aimed at Saddam Hussein's senior officials including "Chemical Ali" who turned poison gas on his own people.

At Basra details emerged of British troops destroying an entire Iraqi column of 17 tanks. An assault along the Euphrates valley saw the capture of several dozen members of Saddam's Republican Guard at Hindiyah, within 50 miles of Baghdad. In the raid, Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes tried to ambush US troops. At least one US soldier was killed in fighting about 20 miles away, near the town of Imam Aiyub.

In a change of US tactics at Nasiriyah, hundreds of marines scoured the outskirts of the city street by street to weed out pockets of Iraqi resistance.

About 5,000 reinforcements are being sent in to support the 7,000 marines there.

US soldiers found gas masks and a number of plastic injectors which marines said contained atropine, a nerve gas antidote issued to soldiers.

Elsewhere, British troops continued to battle for control of the outskirts of Basra where hundreds of Royal Marines took an opposition stronghold.

In the north, the United States says it has destroyed a "massive terrorist facility" which could have been used by terror groups Ansar al-Islam and al Qaeda to make chemical weapons.

US aircraft also hit Iraqi positions near the northern town of Kalak. In western Iraq, US air forces struck paramilitary forces sheltering in an unused prison in Ar Rutbah, it was confirmed today.

Paratroopers of the US 101st Airborne Division have surrounded the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad. American forces are aware that a battle to take Najaf risks destroying holy sites. Iraq has warned that 4,000 Arab suicide attackers have arrived in the country. The US said it had killed about 100 "terror squad" paramilitary fighters and captured about 50 Iraqis today.

In Washington, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected claims that he had launched the war with insufficient ground strength. US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Iran over its " pursuit of weapons of mass destruction" and told Syria it faced a "critical choice" over its "support of terrorism".

British soldiers injured in a friendly fire attack today criticised the US pilot of an A10 tankbuster who shot missiles at them, causing the death of 25-year-old Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull. It was confirmed today that three Americans died when a helicopter crashed at a refuelling point in southern Iraq on Sunday.