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by Jacques Charmelot, BAGHDAD / afp, After a week of devastating bombardment, Baghdad is bearing the scars of war and there is still little sign that its angered inhabitants will greet the invaders with open arms if they finally take the capital. As the denizens of the Iraqi capital try to go about their daily business - driving along pockmarked streets, opening their shops for at least a few hours each day, allowing their children to play soccer on neighborhood roads - evidence of a mounting determination to resist the US-led troops abounds.

Since the US-led Operation Iraq Freedom began March 20, US and British forces have tried to pick off symbols representing President Saddam Hussein's quarter-century grip on power in this metropolis of five million people.

Coalition forces repeatedly showered bombs and missiles on the vast Republican Palace compound on the banks of the Tigris river during the opening days of the campaign, in explosions that resonated throughout the capital.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, buildings housing state security services as well as the headquarters of the air force and the elite Republican Guard were targeted for precision strikes.

Gaping holes in the walls of the complexes, broken-down roofs and facades riddled with shrapnel bore witness to the might of the US military machine.

On the southern outskirts, the Iraqi military's sweeping Al-Rasheed military base also took a series of hits.

From the motorway that skirts the base to the pulverized hangars and the incinerated debris of a few vehicles, little seemed to have eluded enemy firepower.

Saddam and his main lieutenants, however, apparently managed to escape with their lives after the first night's attempt to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership.

Resplendent in long-mothballed military regalia, Saddam appeared to take pleasure during a televised address in proving that he had cheated death at the hands of the world's most powerful military and rallied the Iraqi people to hang tough against the "invaders".

The address had something for everyone, with encouraging words for the military, tribal clans and any average citizen who knew how to use an assault rifle.

Television has also proved an invaluable weapon for the Iraqi leadership, making it an enticing target for coalition warplanes.

A black plume of smoke was still rising from the state television building in central Baghdad Wednesday after overnight airstrikes aimed at the heart of Saddam's propaganda apparatus.

The US-led forces managed briefly to gag the channel, which had enraged Washington and London by airing images of two captured American airmen and five other humiliated prisoners, spliced with gruesome footage of several dead comrades. Yet Baghdad has begun paying a heavy price in human life amid the terrifying bombings, launched by the US administration to "disarm Saddam Hussein" and "liberate the Iraqi people".

On Wednesday, at least 14 people were killed and some 30 wounded when two missiles struck a civilian neighborhood in the north of the capital.

Bitter outcry mixed with grief, as citizens cried "vengeance, vengeance" at reporters arriving on the scene. "They say they only aim at military targets and then they launch bombs on our women and children," shouted Ali Sami, a supporter of Saddam's Baath party. "We sacrifice our blood and our souls for Saddam Hussein!" the protesters chanted, after a blinding sandstorm that covered Baghdad in an ochre blanket of dust.

The list of civilian victims is growing quickly at this early stage in the campaign and each casualty strikes a blow at US and British attempts to convince skeptics the war is in the interests of the Iraqi people.

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