The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has come under one of the most intensive aerial bombardments by coalition forces since the start of the war against Saddam Hussein.

Correspondents say air raids are going on day and night now, with apparently heavier and heavier munitions. Massive explosions were heard from around the southern outskirts of Baghdad, where the United States is trying to displace units of the Republican Guard, at about 1600 local time (1300 GMT).

In the south, from where the American assault on Baghdad is most likely to come, US troops have been digging in, ringing their positions with foxholes and artillery pieces to defend them while they wait for the order to move forward.

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In other developments:

Fifteen people are injured after a truck drives into a group of American soldiers outside a shop at Udairi Camp military base in Kuwait

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf says Iraq has shot down two US helicopters; the Pentagon denied the claim

British forces say they have captured five Iraqi officers and an Iraqi general, and killed a Republican Guard colonel, in clashes south of Basra

A US magazine says Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld overruled his military chiefs, insisting the US went to war in Iraq with a relatively small and lightly armed force

US forces say they have seized a large arsenal in the central town of Nasiriya, with an apparent decontamination unit found along with several weeks’ supply of ammunition

UK pilots say they have destroyed a fuel depot used to supply Republican Guard tanks near Karbala

Al-Jazeera television reports fresh air strikes on Basra and Mosul

US Central Command in Qatar says two more marines have been killed in accidents in southern Iraq


Read the Full Story at the BBC.