A cloud of black smoke rose from the Republican Palace compound on the banks of the Tigris river after the complex, a potent symbol of Saddam's 24-year grip on power, was struck for the third straight day by a missile or bomb.

Iraq said 10 more people died and nearly 90 were injured Tuesday in the aerial blitz around the capital.

Forty-eight other deaths had been reported Tuesday around Hilla south of Baghdad, with grisly images broadcast repeatedly to an Arab world already deeply hostile to the war aimed at toppling Saddam.

US and British warplanes have been pounding positions around the capital for days hoping to weaken Iraq's most elite units, particularly the 60,000-strong Republican Guard.

But Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf denied US reports of advances around Karbala and across the Tigris river to the east, while also playing down the impact of heavy bombarment of Baghdad's southern outskirts.

"It's trivial and it will continue to be trivial," he said.

The US Central Command said that troops were engaging four Republican Guard divisions around the Iraqi capital.

The elite Baghdad division was cut off during heavy fighting with US Marines, who crossed the Tigris near Al-Kut, around 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of the capital, a US officer said.

"The Baghdad division of the Republican Guard is irrelevant. The 3rd and 4th divisions of the Iraqi army are in the bag," said the senior officer with the First Marine Division.

A Central Command spokesman said US troops were also fighting the Medina and Nebuchadnezzar divisions of the Republican Guard, while the Adnan division was being pounded from the air to the north.

An AFP reporter travelling with the US 3rd Infantry reported passing through a vital passageway for an advance on Baghdad, a narrow desert strip between Karbala and a lake to the west in the so-called Karbala Gap.

"This is it, the last push," said Major Maurice Goins before the attack near the Shiite Muslim holy city, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital.

The Republican Guard, which has eight divisions, is considered the best-equipped and most motivated of Iraq's forces.

It had plenty of on-the-ground training in the 1980-1988 war against Iran and the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, although it took a beating in the subsequent Gulf war.

But Iraq has warned repeatedly that the decisive battle would be in Baghdad, where it hopes to engage US-led forces in bloody street-to-street fighting.

Saddam said Wednesday in a message read in his name on Iraqi satellite television that the regime had committed only "a third" of its armed forces to the war for its existence.

"The opportunity is there today to defend religion, honour and principles in the face of the invaders," said the message, dated Tuesday and read out by a presenter in military uniform.

In a separate statement read on state television late Tuesday, Saddam said jihad, or holy war, was a "duty" for Arabs and Muslims and branded the US-led war an assault on "religion, property, people and honour".

"Fight them in every location as you are doing today, and don't give them a chance to catch their breath until they pull out of Muslim land," said the speech, read by Sahhaf.

"Hit them, fight them! They are evil aggressors."

Although Saddam has almost always steered clear of live television, his two non-appearances raised new speculation about whether he remains alive after the thousands of air strikes which have pounded Iraq since March 20.

Both London and Washington said Saddam's absence on television raised "questions" about his fate.

Iraqi officials have scorned any suggestion he may be dead or hurt, while state television regularly shows him meeting with his inner circle. But it is never known if such footage is pre-recorded.

The television, without airing images, said Wednesday that Saddam chaired a meeting of top advisers including his two sons: Qussay, head of the Republican Guard, and Uday, who runs the Fedayeen paramilitary corps.

Saddam's calls to the Muslim world appealed to international fury over the latest killings of women and children.

In the farming town of Hilla south of the capital, the local hospital director said 33 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in a bombing raid Tuesday.

A civilian also told AFP that 15 members of his family were killed when their pickup truck was blown up by a rocket fired by a US Apache helicopter.

US President George W. Bush expressed regret at any civilian deaths, but charged that Saddam was responsible for most deaths of innocent people in the war.

An eighth communications center was also damaged in Baghdad, where about half of the five million people living in the capital have had telephone service cut off.

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