Coalition airstrikes have hit a number of targets since Saturday night around the city, where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard is entrenched. Satellite-guided munitions targeted at least one command-and-control site and two surface-to-air missile sites. 

Coalition troops have moved to within 60 miles of Baghdad on several fronts and a "capable ground force" is in place in northern Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks said at a briefing Sunday at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar.  "Every day the regime loses more of its military capabilities," Franks said, adding that there has been no pause in operations.  Franks said coalition forces had destroyed what he called a "huge" terrorist facility in northern Iraq and that troops were examining it.  Franks also said the coastline of Iraq has been secured. U.S. forces in western Iraq have captured an Iraqi general, who led them to a cache of weapons that included 26 surface-to-air, anti-aircraft missiles and six anti-aircraft guns, Central Command told CNN.

Gen. Tommy Franks said Sunday there has been no pause in coalition operations.

Earlier Sunday, British Royal Marines said that they had captured an Iraqi general, who was a paramilitary leader, and four other high-ranking paramilitary officials in a raid southeast of the southern city of Basra. A colonel with the paramilitaries was killed in the operation. Capt. Al Lockwood said the Royal Marines met patchy resistance as they pushed into the area. 

"It's not really predictable at this stage, but we're having to deal with each incident as it happens," he said. "I know we're aggressively patrolling the outskirts [of Basra], and certainly part of it will be under our control, but we don't have a complete picture of it yet." 

Farther north, U.S. Marines appear to have secured the southern bank of the Euphrates River in Nasiriya. They are taking heavy fire from the other bank in the town, which has been the scene of a drawn-out battle. (Full story) 

Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Hazem al-Rawi disputed reports of coalition gains and said that Iraqi troops have halted coalition forces, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and threatening supplies. 

He also said that Iraqi forces have destroyed or seized more than 130 tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles. U.S. officials have not commented on these reports. 

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said that Iraqi tribal fighters shot down an Apache helicopter in Basra, killing the two pilots. Al-Sahaf also said that the fighters destroyed four tanks, killed or captured the crew and downed an unmanned Predator reconnaissance drone. Pentagon officials denied the allegations, and Central Command is checking reports of the downed drone. 

Franks said Saturday's suicide car bomb attack in which four U.S. soldiers were killed in Najaf would not change the coalition's strategy. (Full story) 

He said it was not surprising that Iraq would resort to suicide attacks, but he said it was remarkable that these strikes were endorsed "all the way to the top" of the Iraqi government. 

In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mohamed Aldouri, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, denied Saturday's attack was a suicide bombing because he said an Iraqi soldier was defending his country. 

Aldouri said Iraqis would "use any type of weapons to defend ourselves." He ruled out the use of chemical weapons, saying, "We don't have chemical weapons. ... Iraq is cleaned of that." 

Other developments
• A man drove a white pickup into troops waiting outside the post exchange at Camp Udairi in Kuwait on Sunday, injuring at least six members of the U.S. military. Soldiers fired at the truck's driver, who was taken to a U.S. military medical facility in Kuwait, where he was in intensive care. The matter is under investigation, but sources said it appeared to have been the result of a personal dispute. 

• British Army Maj-Gen. Albert Whitely said Sunday that work would begin Monday on a pipeline that would deliver 600,000 gallons of fresh water a day from Kuwait to the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr. 

• Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi warned the United States on Sunday that "the worst days are yet to come" in Iraq. "The reality of the truth is that regardless how much the Iraqi people are disgruntled with their regime and with their government, still they would not want or allow a government imposed on them by foreigners," Kharrazi told reporters at the Foreign Ministry in Tehran. 

• Bloodied U.S. battle fatigues believed to belong to members of the Army's 507th Ordnance and Maintenance Company were found in a Nasiriya hospital, according to a Pentagon official. The unit was ambushed March 23. Two soldiers were killed, five were taken as prisoners of war and eight others are missing. (Full story) 

• Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a news conference Saturday that coalition forces could expect more suicide bombings and praised "every martyr that aims to protect their land." Iraq TV announced Sunday that Saddam would give the family of the man who carried out Saturday's attack 100 million dinars, or about $35,000.

• Twenty-six U.S. service members are unaccounted for in Iraq. Another 59 U.S. and British service members have been confirmed killed since the fighting began. (Coalition casualties) 

• Iraq's state-run television reported Saturday that 357 Iraqi citizens have been killed and 3,650 injured after 10 days of war. Included in that figure are at least 50 civilian deaths and 49 injuries from Friday's market bombing in the Iraqi capital, according to Iraqi TV. 

• The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Sunday in the coastal Israeli city of Netanya. A leaflet from the group called the attack, which wounded at least 49 people, "a gift to the Iraqi people from Palestine."