BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Waves of air attacks struck the Baghdad area yesterday, the 10th day of the US-led war, with at least one missile crashing into the information ministry, which said 62 people had been killed across the city.

“Raids carried out since last night until this morning left 62 martyrs and 107 wounded,” Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said.

Intense air attacks repeatedly struck the capital and its southern rim yesterday as anti-aircraft gunners swung into action.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Waves of air attacks struck the Baghdad area yesterday, the 10th day of the US-led war, with at least one missile crashing into the information ministry, which said 62 people had been killed across the city.

“Raids carried out since last night until this morning left 62 martyrs and 107 wounded,” Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said.

Intense air attacks repeatedly struck the capital and its southern rim yesterday as anti-aircraft gunners swung into action.

Big bangs were heard unabated for more than half-an-hour during the afternoon and again yesterday evening from Baghdad’s southern rim, where elite troops are believed to be concentrated. Balls of fire sprang into the air from a number of sites on the southern outskirts.

Amid reports that the coalition may be slowing down its ground offensive to secure its supply lines — claims US and British officers dismissed — Iraqi vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, denied US charges the country was receiving military backing from Syria and Iran.

“It is a lie by the enemy to justify the halt of his advance” towards Baghdad, Ramadan said of the accusations made by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday.

US president, George W Bush, promised to crush “desperate units” fighting fiercely, however long it takes, after a suicide bomber blew up four US soldiers at a checkpoint yesterday in central Iraq.

“We are now fighting the most desperate units of the dictator’s army. The fighting is fierce and we do not know its duration, yet we know the outcome of this battle: The Iraqi regime will be disarmed and removed from power. Iraq will be free,” said Bush, who was spending the weekend at his Camp David retreat.

Iraqi state television said the suicide bomber who killed the US troops was an Iraqi army officer seeking to teach the Americans a “lesson”.

Yesterday’s blasts in Baghdad briefly interrupted Sahhaf’s press conference at which he rejected a new UN Security Council resolution renewing the oil-for-food programme.

“Only Iraq can administer this programme,” upon which 60 per cent of Iraqis had depended, he insisted.

State television said President Saddam Hussein had met with top Iraqi officials, who expressed their ultimate confidence in a victory over US and British forces.

“The meeting expressed deep confidence that the Americans and Britons will be definitively defeated worldwide after their defeat in Iraq is completed,” it said.

The remarks came after the bloodiest day in Baghdad since the start of the US-led campaign, with at least 38 civilians reported killed in two separate incidents on Friday.

At least 30 of the dead were killed in a single strike on a market, hospital officials said, just two days after missiles crashed into a housing block in a working class neighbourhood of the capital, killing 14.

The US military said it was nearing a conclusion that its own airstrikes may have caused the explosions that tore through the neighbourhood and was investigating the deadly marketplace bombing.

In London, a British government spokesman said that many Iraqi surface-to-air missiles had malfunctioned and fallen on the capital.

“A large number of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles have been malfunctioning. Many have failed to hit their targets and have fallen back onto Baghdad before exploding,” the spokesman said.

At least one coalition missile overnight crashed into Sahhaf’s information ministry, gutting the top floor of the 11-storey building, from where the regime runs its propaganda machine and maintains strict control over the media.

No one was reported injured but the force of the blast, at a time when the high-rise is usually empty, dealt a piercing blow to “tent city”, the storied rooftop where international reporters had delivered the war to the world.

State television, however, was still on the air, broadcasting footage, often set to music, of Iraqis praising Saddam and vowing victory over the US-led coalition. The compound that houses the channel had also been attacked Wednesday.

In the international press centre, which looks onto the street, windows were blown out.

The higher floors of the building, near the Tigris river, also house Sahhaf’s office, the official Iraqi News Agency and the state-run Internet service provider.

Meanwhile, seven Italian journalists, who were reported missing, arrived in Baghdad after being arrested in the southern city of Basra when they asked for directions.

Ezio Pasero, a journalist with the Il Messagero newspaper, said he and his colleagues were detained by militiamen from the ruling Baath party on Friday in Basra when they asked policemen to point the way.