Thirty-three people, including women and children, died and 310 were wounded in a coalition bombing on the outskirts of the farming town of Hilla, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital yesterday, local hospital director Murtada Abbas said.

He was speaking at the Hilla Hospital where a large number of children lay wounded under blankets on the floor due to a shortage of beds.

Fifteen members of one family were killed nearby late Monday when their pickup truck was blown up by a rocket from a US Apache helicopter in the region of Haidariya near Hilla, the sole survivor of the attack said.

Razek Al-Kazem Al-Khafaji, sitting among 15 coffins in the local hospital, said he lost his wife, six children, his father, his mother, his three brothers and their wives.

The British and US airstrikes on this city accounted for a further 19 people dead and more than 100 wounded since Monday evening, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf said on the 13th day of the US-led attempt to unseat Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq. US troops admitted killing seven women and children when they opened fire Monday on a civilian vehicle at a military checkpoint manned by the US Army’s Third Infantry Division at Najaf, 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Baghdad.

International commentators and officials agreed that the incidents, together with the continual bombing on the capital, were likely to fuel vocal international opposition to the war and deal a severe blow to the US-led forces’ bid to win the trust of the Iraqi people. “If such scenes become routine... the political war for Iraq could be lost even before the military one is won,” the New York Times warned in an editorial.

The British government admitted for the first time that Iraqi civilians may see US/UK forces as villains not liberators.

“We know that for the moment we will be seen as the villains. We knew that from the reaction before the conflict started,” Home Secretary David Blunkett told BBC television late on Monday.

In Brussels the European Commission called the checkpoint killings “a horrible and tragic incident... It is not an isolated incident. Too many civilians have already lost their lives in this war”.

US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, speaking at operational headquarters in Qatar, said US troops opened fire “as a last resort” after the civilian vehicle failed to stop at a military post despite repeated warning shots fired by US troops. Four people in the vehicle escaped unharmed. The Washington Post quoted US Army 3rd Division Capt. Ronny Johnson as shouting over the radio to his men after the shooting: “You just (expletive) killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough.” A US military investigation has been opened.

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said US President George W. Bush regretted the deaths of Iraqi civilians but “recognizes that most innocents have been lost in this war at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen”.

US troops are on edge after a suicide car bomb attack Saturday near Najaf killed four soldiers. More than 3,000 Arab volunteers in Iraq are ready to carry out such suicide missions against the US-led coalition, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan warned yesterday.

Meanwhile the air campaign to soften up the Iraqi forces around the capital intensified. The southern outskirts of this city were pounded by an especially intense bombardment that sent balls of fire and towers of black smoke into the sky.

Massive explosions rocked the area around 4:30 p.m. (1330 GMT) in what was at least the third wave of bombings since dawn. Saddam’s main presidential palace complex in the Iraqi capital, a potent symbol of his iron 24-year rule, came under fresh daylight bombardment. Iraq brought up reinforcements for Republican Guard units defending the approaches to Baghdad, US officers said, as coalition forces pressed their operations ahead of an expected major push on the capital.

US officers said 200 Iraqis were killed, wounded or captured in the clashes which broke out overnight on Monday near Karbala, 80 kilometers from Baghdad.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned that as US and British troops advance on the capital they will face fierce resistance and could experience setbacks.

“There may be more setbacks for coalition troops,” Straw said in a speech to the Newspaper Society annual conference.

In the north, coalition warplanes kept up heavy airstrikes on Iraqi Army positions in and around the oil center of Kirkuk, rebel Kurdish officials said.

In the southern town of Basra, British troops said they were waiting for reinforcements before making a final push to take the city.

An Iraqi military spokesman said at least 54 US and British soldiers had been killed in fighting since Sunday, most of them around Basra, with an unspecified number of others killed in other parts of Iraq.

Officials in London said a British soldier was killed on duty in southern Iraq, taking to 26 the British death toll since the start of the war. US authorities say at least 39 US soldiers have been killed.

With the war looking like lasting far longer than many had hoped, the House of Representatives appropriations committee yesterday approved a $74.7 billion funding boost sought by Bush to fund the campaign.