A new wave of air assault o­n Baghdad started today, with US military officials saying that among the targets hit include Iraq's Information Ministry and a palace used by Iraqi president's son.

According to Reuters news agency, a telephone exchange was also hit as the war entered its 11th day. The report said other raids also targeted the northern city of Mosul.

"Warplanes flew low over the Iraqi capital o­n Monday morning as anti-aircraft fire raked the sky after a night of sustained blasts. A big explosion could be heard somewhere in the city center as a rumble of blasts came from the southern outskirts," said the report.

The attack o­n the Information Ministry was the second attack in three days. The blasts also triggered a fire near to the ministry complex.

Qusay's palace hit again

According to the report, two more explosions reverberated through central Baghdad, hitting the presidential palace used by Qusay Hussein, Saddam's powerful son.

Qusay commands Saddam's elite Republican Guard. His compound o­n the western bank of the river Tigris was last targeted o­n Sunday and was hit by several missiles in the first days of the US-led war to overthrow Saddam, which started o­n March 20.

Reuters

added that the raids also scored two direct hits o­n the city center telephone exchange, flattening the six-story building, leaving it a heap of rubble and twisted metal. The exchange was also bombed in the 1991 Gulf War and later rebuilt.

"The hit brings to six the number of exchanges knocked out in the bombings. There are about 20 exchanges in Baghdad, but making a telephone call is already almost impossible without resort to satellite communications."

On other battle fronts, BBC reported that the US is sending thousands more troops to secure the town of Nasiriya o­n the vital supply route to Baghdad. Special forces soldiers as well as marines are being deployed to the area where coalition forces have come up against stiff resistance.

BBC

also reported that invading US and UK forces saying they are making advances elsewhere in Iraq, encircling the key central town of Najaf and seizing an opposition stronghold near Basra.

Mounting casualties

Meanwhile, a fierce battle between the US-led troops with the Iraqis near Imam Aiyub, 110 km south of Baghdad. resulted in the killing of o­ne American soldier.

The news agency said US artillery was firing toward the town and the Iraqis were hitting back with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Since the was began, the United States has now lost 46 soldiers and 104 wounded with 17 listed as missing. Britain has 24 dead soldiers. Iraq has said nearly 600 Iraqi civilians have been killed and more than 4,500 wounded.

'We don't have a general'

On another front, contrary to earlier claims that it's forces have captured an Iraqi general in Basra yesterday, the British are now clarifying that their catch was o­nly "another officer".

"He was misidentified as a general. He was just another officer," Reuters news agency quoted a British military spokesperson as saying today.

Asked how the mistake was discovered, he said: "We just got feedback through the channel of command."

Yesterday, a British spokesman said British Royal Marine commandos captured a general and five other Iraqis and killed another senior officer in fighting around Basra that left o­ne British soldier dead and an undetermined number wounded.

However Qatar-based satellite television channel al-Jazeera quoted Lieutenant-General Walid Hamid Tawfiq, an Iraqi field commander in the Basra region, as denying that a general had been captured and a colonel killed.

According to satellite news channel, Tawfiq said four British soldiers were killed in the o­ngoing battles south of Basra.

On another development, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said that the war against Iraq will produce "one hundred new bin Ladens", referring to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden who has been accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US.

"When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences," Reuters quoted Mubarak as telling Egyptian soldiers in the city of Suez.