Washington ? An American bomber struck a residential complex Monday in Baghdad after U.S. intelligence received information that Saddam Hussein, his sons and other top Iraqi leaders might be meeting there, U.S. officials said.

There was no immediate word on who might have been killed, but U.S. officials said they had evidence the target had been destroyed. “There is a big hole where that target used to be,” one U.S. official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

The attack was carried out by a single B-1B bomber that dropped four 2,000-pound, bunker-penetrating bombs on the residential building, military officials said.

The strike came at 3 p.m. Baghdad time in the upscale Mansour neighborhood, said Marine Maj. Brad Bartelt, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Qatar.

“We are confirming that a leadership target was indeed hit very hard,” Bartelt said. He had no information of the results of the attack.

Three adjoining houses in the Mansour neighborhood were destroyed Monday afternoon in a strike neighbors said they thought came from a coalition missile. All that was left of the houses was a heap of concrete, mangled iron rods, ruined furniture and clothes.

The attack left a crater yards deep and the force of the blast broke windows and doors as far as 300 yards away from the site. Three orange trees that grew on the sidewalk outside the houses were uprooted.

Rescue workers were looking in the rubble for victims. Two bodies were recovered initially, but the toll could go as high as 14, they said.

The strike came on a day when U.S. forces also occupied two of Saddam’s palaces southwest of the target zone and knocked down a statue of the Iraqi leader as they tried to wrest control of Baghdad from his regime.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said American intelligence learned Monday morning of a high-level meeting in Baghdad between senior Iraqi intelligence officials and, possibly, Saddam and his two sons, Qusai and Odai.

The intelligence was passed to U.S. Central Command, which sent aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on the target.

Coalition strikes have aimed at top Iraqi leaders since the beginning of the war. U.S. and British troops have invaded at least four of Saddam’s many palaces in recent days, including two Monday in Baghdad, looking for information, including clues to where he and his inner circle might be.

On March 19, President Bush authorized a strike on a suburban Baghdad compound where Saddam and his sons were believed to be staying. That strike, like Monday’s attack, was based on time-sensitive intelligence.

For days after the initial strike, U.S. officials sorted through intelligence suggesting Saddam may have been killed or injured, but intelligence officials have become increasingly confident he survived that strike.

Earlier Monday, U.S. and British officials said they thought Saddam’s top commander in southern Iraq had been killed in a U.S. airstrike.

American warplanes bombed a home in Basra where Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, was believed to be staying. That attack, too, was based on a time-sensitive tip. Al-Majid was a former Iraqi defense chief whose enemies called him “Chemical Ali” for his role in 1988 chemical weapons attacks on Iraqi Kurds.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed a video clip of the attack Monday at a Pentagon news conference.

“We believe that the reign of terror of Chemical Ali has come to an end. To Iraqis who have suffered at his hand, particularly in the last few weeks in that southern part of the country, he will never again terrorize you or your families,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.