Heavy bombing was heard in central Baghdad shortly after midnight (9 p.m. Irish Time) tonight, reporters based in the city have said. The renewed targeting of the capital on the fifth night of the war launched by the United States followed a massive non-stop bombardment south of Baghdad.
US and British planes targeted Republican Guard forces just south of Baghdad this evening in perhaps the largest assault to date on the troops, US officials said.
Meanwhile, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division moved north this evening toward the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, only 50 miles south of Baghdad, but was stalled by a sandstorm that blew out of the desert.
Iraqi fighters have stalled troops trying to sweep north to the city, but the US is claiming progress in the war has been rapid.
US commander General Tommy Franks told a press conference in Qatar that Iraqi resistance had been "sporadic", echoing British Defence Minister Geoff Hoon who dismissed it as "patchy".
"Major land combat formations continue to move as you have seen them move over the last three or four days," General Franks said. "Progress toward our objectives has been rapid and in some cases dramatic."
Earlier, a US military spokesman has said US forces have been in northern Iraq for about 24 hours, opening up battle lines north of Baghdad for the first time.
However, it is the southern town Nassiriya, which commands two strategic bridges across the Euphrates River, that is seeing the toughest fighting so far. There was also major fighting Iraqi resistance in the southern city of Basra.
Last night, a US military spokesman said 12 US soldiers were missing in the Nassiriya area and up to nine had been killed. Some media put the death toll as high as 16. A number of other Americans were wounded.
Iraq claimed to have killed up to 25 US troops in the battle for Nassiriya area.
Today a British soldier was killed in action in southern Iraq, according to reports.
Iraq put five US captives on television and showed up to eight corpses of what it said were US soldiers killed in fighting near the southern town of Nassiriya.
Today, US forces continued their advance towards Baghdad, with US marines closing in on the capital from the southeast and US infantry to the west surging past Najaf, some 160 kilometres from the city.
At the same time aircraft continued to bomb the country, with dozens of explosions booming across Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul.
In Baghdad, several huge explosions rocked the city centre before dawn with no warning from air raid sirens and no sign of anti-aircraft fire. The blasts were among the biggest to hit the city since US and British bombardments began on Thursday.
At 4 p.m. Irish time four large explosions were heard in Baghdad, heralding another wave of attack on the city.
There were also reports that for the first time in the five-day war, US forces had staged an air strike on Iraqi frontlines between the Kurdish-held northern town of Chamchamal and the key city of Kirkuk.
British forces are today trying to locate two British soldiers missing in action in southern Iraq. They went missing near Basra yesterday.
Yesterday, one US soldier was killed and 15 injured in a grenade attack on a command post in Kuwait by a US serviceman said to be angry at the war. A US army spokesman said the suspect had been named as Army Sergeant Asan Akbar.
A British Tornado jet was also downed by a US missile in a case of "friendly fire". Both crewmen died.