In And Around Baghdad

-- The US Central Command confirmed Tuesday that the US air forces had struck a "leadership target" in Baghdad on Monday, where some top Iraqi officials were holding a meeting.

Major Brad Bartlett, a spokesman at the Qatar-based war headquarters of the US Central Command, told reporters that a US B-1 bomber dropped four heavy bombs, each of 2,000 pounds, at a building in the Baghdad district of Mansur on Monday afternoon.

Iraqi forces launched an artillery attack early Tuesday morning against the United States troops who occupied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's main Republican Palace compound in eastern Baghdad.

-- Iraqi troops retook from the US forces parts of the Iraqi Ministry of Information on the eastern bank of Tigris river, which the US troops seized on Monday, a Xinhua reporter said.

Light weapons fire was heard in western part of the Iraqi capital, which the US troops have not yet entered and remains under the Iraqi control.

-- The invading US forces and the Iraqi troops exchanged fire in east Baghdad on Tuesday.

It was the first time that such an exchange of fire took place in east Baghdad. Earlier, two US Abrams tanks rolled onto a major bridge over the Tigris river, which triggered the heavy fighting.

US planes are seen hovering over Baghdad, attacking the positions of the Iraqi forces.

-- The US forces and Iraqi troops on Tuesday exchanged fire over two key bridges in central Baghdad.

US armored vehicles and tanks fired cannon and machineguns from the western ends of the Gumhuriya and Sinak bridges over the Tigris river in the central section of the capital city as Iraqi forces fired back from the eastern bank.

-- A US A-10 "Warthog" plane went down near Baghdad airport on Tuesday but the pilot was rescued, the US Central Command said in a statement.

"The pilot ejected safely from the aircraft and was recovered by coalition ground forces near the airport," the statement said.

-- Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf stressed here on Tuesday that his country will defeat invading US-led coalition forces.

"We will destroy them," Sahaf told reporters near the Palestine Hotel, which was hit during the coalition's bombardment on the Iraqi capital earlier.

"US forces will be repelled in Baghdad," he said, adding the forces were being trapped in tanks, which are incapable of leaving Baghdad.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2003)