BAGHDAD (Reuters) - When Shafa Hussein returned from taking her sick son to a Baghdad hospital, she found her home in ruins, destroyed in U.S.-British air strikes.

Her house in the Qadissiya residential area of central Baghdad was reduced to rubble and all her belongings, including money, food and furniture, were buried under heaps of concrete.

"Thank God that my husband, my child and myself were not hurt," said the distraught 39-year-old woman.

Five other houses were demolished and 12 damaged in the raid, which residents said took place at 7:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. EST) on Saturday. They said several people had been wounded and taken to the nearby Yarmouk hospital, but no one had been killed.

The target of what residents said had been cruise missiles was not clear. President Saddam Husssein's Salam palace, hit in air strikes on Friday, is about two miles away.

Shafa stood in the rubble of her home, trying to salvage some pictures from the wreckage and wondering where to go next.

"I'm going to flee Baghdad but I don't know where to go because I have no money and no place to go," she told Reuters.

"I hope that they will not attack power stations," she said, thinking about her husband who works in one.

The United States and Britain have waged round-the-clock bomb and missile attacks on Baghdad since Thursday.

Ground forces, invading from Kuwait, have seized the key southern port of Umm Qasr and pushed close to the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

"This is real terrorism. Innocent people are sitting in their homes and bombs fall on their heads. I ask America, isn't this terrorism?" said Hulayel al-Jekhafi, whose house was damaged in the attack on the Qadissiya neighborhood.

"Where are the Arabs and where are the Muslims? Our houses are being destroyed, our children are being killed and they are not doing anything," Saad Abbas, another resident, complained.