The bombing of Baghdad continued tonight. Flames and smoke could be seen billowing over the Iraqi capital and several large explosions could be heard. British and US warplanes flew over 600 bombing raid as skies cleared over today.
US President George W Bush has said the war against Iraq will last "however long it takes to win," brushing aside a question about whether the conflict could last months.
Speaking after meeting at Camp David with British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair to study war plans and preparations for the conflict's aftermath, Mr Bush would not address growing pessimism about the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein.
In Baghdad, Iraqi military spokesman General Hazem al-Rawi said Republican Guards killed "huge numbers of the enemy" and destroyed six armoured vehicles in battles in southern Iraq.
"I can confirm that the enemy was not able to achieve the minimum of its objectives," he said.
Near the southern city of Basra, British troops battled an Iraqi column of tanks intent on attacking forces surrounding Iraq's second-largest city. "We've come up against some stiff opposition," British Air Marshal Brian Burridge said in Qatar.
Heavy fighting between US-led forces and Iraqi troops is continuing at locations throughout the country, following the arrival of thousands of US reinforcements.
Last night, US paratroopers created a major beachhead in northern Iraq in a move to open a new front in the war to oust President Saddam Hussein.
About 1,000 US troops parachuted into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq last night and took control of an air base.
The parachute drop heralded a new threat for the Republican Guard units defending Baghdad, who have been preparing for battle against an armoured column rapidly advancing from the south.
But US troops suffered a setback when dozens of US marines were wounded in friendly fire during an Iraqi attack near the southern town of Nasiriyah, US officers at the scene said.
Another marine unit from the east broke free of Iraqi resistance between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and has moved to within 230 kilometers of the capital.
Explosions also rocked Baghdad overnight, with more than 30 blasts heard around the city in at least four rounds of attacks through the night. Iraqi Health Minister Umid Medhat Mubarak said a total of 36 civilians had been killed in the raids, and that 350 people - mostly women, children and the elderly - had been killed since the start of the war.
US forces said they had killed about 1,000 Iraqi troops in three days of intense clashes in and around Najaf. US forces say they have more than 4,500 prisoners of war, but Iraqi troops have so far proved far more resilient than in the 1991 Gulf War.
Elsewhere, British troops engaged in fierce battles outside the southern city of Basra claim to have destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks.
Further south, the discovery of mines in the deep-water port of Umm Qasr delayed the first shipment of British aid into Iraq.
Today, the United States claimed that a stray Iraqi missile or deliberate Iraqi sabotage may have caused blasts in a Baghdad street that killed as many as 15 civilians yesterday.One US defence official said it was clear that the Iraqi military "went to school" and had learned lessons about how the United States fought in the Gulf War, against Somali militia fighters in 1993 and in Kosovo in 1999.
As Britain and the United States draw up plans to rebuild a post-war Iraq, the European Union today insisted the United Nations must be "in the driving seat" in post-conflict Iraq. But Washington plans a more limited UN role.
The UN Security Council is due to hold a public debate on Iraq this afternoon.
Agencies