Cameraman Tareq Ayub was seriously hurt while another staffer, Zuheir al-Iraqi, was hit in the neck by shrapnel, the station said, airing footage of Ayub being taken away for treatment in a car belonging to rival network Abu Dhabi television.

Al-Jazeera's presenter accused the US military of "deliberately targetting" its offices and recalled that the station's Kabul bureau had been hit in November 2001 during the US-led assault on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The television's offices are on the road between the Mansur Hotel and the planning ministry, not far from the Republican Palace compound where fierce fighting raged between US and Iraqi troops early Tuesday.

A US air force A10 "tank killer" plane provided close air support for the first time hitting the planning ministry and other targets in the administrative district around the sprawling city centre compound, an AFP correspondent reported.

SPACE.WIRE