From Radio Free Europe:

Explosions mixed with the sounds of traffic and car alarms in the Iraqi capital Baghdad this morning. Coalition air strikes targeted communications centers and knocked out some telephone lines in some of the heaviest bombing of the city yet in the nine-day-old war. Another bombing run targeted Iraqi tanks outside the capital.

And there was continued fighting in and around Nasiriyah and the central city of Najaf, where U.S. troops advancing on the capital clashed with around 1,500 Iraqis overnight.

A spokesman at U.S. Central Command, U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, said U.S. troops defeated paramilitary forces in that battle. "[The U.S.] 5th Corps, also from the land component, defeated paramilitary attacks north of An-Najaf and continues to shape the battlefield for future operations," Brooks said.