US says 'significant' forces in Baghdad

10.00pm

UPDATE - A "significant number" of US troops are entering Baghdad and they are not just on a brief patrol, a senior spokesman at US Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar says.

"We do now have troops in the city of Baghdad...they're in the middle of the city of Baghdad," Captain Frank Thorp told Reuters in an interview today.

"We will continue to move, this is more than a patrol that goes in and comes back out. We're a mobile force so we'll continue to move, but at this point we have a significant number of troops moving into the city."

He declined to put a number on the troops from the US V Corps entering the Iraqi capital or say specifically where he meant by the "middle" of the city.

Thorp said there had been only sporadic resistance to the push, which came a day after US troops captured the sprawling airport to the southwest of the city, but had no reports of casualties so far.

"I use the word sporadic from a strategic sense, he said. "There were firefights but if you're one of those folks who were involved in that firefight on the ground it was pretty intense."

Iraq's Information Ministry later said its forces had retaken the airport and had expelled the US troops. This could not be independently confirmed.

"Relying upon God our brave people were able to expel the invaders from Saddam International Airport and they are now surrounded by our troops in a small place in Abu Ghraib," a ministry official said. Abu Ghraib is a district near to the airport.

US military sources near Baghdad told Reuters they had called in aircraft to help reinforce troops battling Iraqis on the northern edge of the airport.

They also said at least four US soldiers had been wounded, one of them seriously.

Thorp said battles continued "in and around" the airport.

The airport could be used to bring in supplies by helicopter and -- if the runway, disabled to prevent Iraqi leaders escaping by plane, is repaired -- by fixed-wing airlift.

"We have the capabilities to fix the runway if we need to do that and if we decide to do that," Thorp said. "If landing fixed-wing aircraft presents itself as a good opportunity we will go in that direction."

He said the US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, heading into the capital from the southeast, had penetrated the Al Nida Division of the Republican Guard and had engaged a small number of Special Republican Guard, forces fiercely loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The Central Command officer said there were reports of citizens fleeing the city in various directions.

"We don't have a number," he said. "We wouldn't classify it as mass departures but we have reports of traffic jams and people trying to get out of the city."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war