The Abrams tanks opened fire, artillery pounded out and automatic weapons crackled as US forces moved to quell resistance from an Iraqi position blocking the eastern exit of the Al-Jumhuriya bridge.

Smoke billowed across the area overflown intermittently by coalition warplanes in support of ground forces.

Iraqi anti-aircraft fire has been seldom heard in recent days as US forces have blasted their way to President Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace after taking the international airport on Friday.

The cracks and booms of battle began around 07:00 (0300 GMT) after a relatively quiet night and continued sporadically for more than two hours.

Intense shooting was also heard from the south of the capital as US troops sought to tighten their grip on Iraq.

US warplanes strafed the palace complex Tuesday and tanks rumbled out to capture the adjacent bridge, but Iraq's regime vowed no surrender.

A US tank also shelled the Baghdad hotel used by many journalists covering the conflict, killing two cameramen and wounding three other media personnel.

Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf claimed the Iraqis had "imprisoned" US troops inside their tanks.

"They are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks," Sahhaf said when asked if it was not time for Baghdad to give up.

He was speaking outside the Palestine Hotel, which houses most foreign journalists still in Baghdad, minutes after it came under US bombardment.

A Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters, Taras Protsyuk, 35, was killed and three other staff members were wounded, the British news agency said.

Spanish cameraman Jose Couso died in the same incident, his employer Telecinco said.

General Buford Blount, commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division, said a US tank was "receiving fire from the hotel, RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and small-arms fire, and engaged with one tank round. The firing stopped."

But footage shot by France 3 television showed the tank gun pointed for at least two minutes at the hotel before it opened fire, and without any shots being heard fired at the tank.

Also in Baghdad, the correspondent of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, Tareq Ayub, a 34-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian origin, died after the station's office was hit by a missile.

Some 25 staff from Al-Jazeera and rival satellite channel Abu Dhabi televison were holed up in the crossfire and their editors appealed to London and Washington to help extricate them.

The capital, cut off by US forces, turned into a ghost town after nightfall, with even armed fighters off the streets of large parts of the city.

Baghdad's official radio and television have fallen silent.

Nothing has been heard from Saddam since a US B1 bomber flattened a building he was believed to have entered in the al-Mansur district on Monday.

However, in London, newspapers quoted intelligence sources saying the Iraqi president had likely left just before, maintaining a reputation for secrecy and survival built up over decades.

"We think he left the same way he arrived in the area, either by a tunnel system or by car, we're not sure," The Times quoted a British intelligence source as saying.

SPACE.WIRE