Iraq's Information Minister has said Iraq may take "non-conventional" action against US-led forces tonight but said weapons of mass destruction will not be used.
"We will commit a non-conventional act on them, not necessarily military," Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf told a news conference, adding the act might be tonight. "We will do something that will be a great example for these mercenaries."
Asked if Iraq would used weapons of mass destruction, Mr Sahaf told a news conference: "No, not at all. But we will conduct a kind of martyrdom operations."
It was not clear what he meant by "non-conventional". Sahaf also said that US forces were on an "isolated island" at Baghdad airport. "It is difficult for the US forces that are surrounded in Saddam airport to come out alive," he said.
Heavy artillery fire rumbled from southwestern Baghdad this evening from the direction of the airport.
Earlier, the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was seen addressing the nation on television and urging the peopel of Baghdad to "strike the enemy with force".
The only reference to the date the address was recorded was a mention of a US Apache helicopter downed on March 24th.
In separate footage Iraqi TV showed Saddam in Baghdad being mobbed by crowds.
Saddam, dressed in a military uniform, was mobbed bycheering, chanting Iraqis. Some of them kissed him on his cheeks and hands and he held up a small child. The television said he visited buildings bombed by US warplanes.
The Pentagon labeled the tape as "interesting", adding thatofficials do not see effective control over the Iraqi militaryfrom Iraq's president.
"We find it interesting that Saddam Hussein, if he is alive, feels the need to walk in the street to prove that," Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations for the US military's Joint Staff, told a Pentagon briefing.
"What we don't see is effective command and control from his level. We do see some sort of regime command and control, but effective military command and control, which is normally emanated from the core of the regime, has not been apparent on the battlefield."
The US military said 320 Iraqi foot soldiers were killed in fighting for control of the airport, just 12 miles southwest of the centre of Baghdad.
Further south marines took some 2,500 prisoners in a clashed with Iraqi Republican Guards. US Marine sources said they had defeated the Nida division of the Republican Guard, southeast of Baghdad.
Mortar and small-arms duels were continuing in a small corner of Baghdad's main airport, hours after troops of the army's 3rd Infantry Division smashed through the perimeter fence, meeting little initial resistance.
Fighting flared up around 7.30 a.m. (4.30 a.m. Irish time) shortly after the US forces said they had seized around 80 per cent of the airport. It did not prevent them searching buildings, clearing bunkers of munitions and preparing the bomb-cratered runway for use by aircraft of the US-British coalition.
But Iraqi troops were feared to be still lurking in a suspected underground tunnel complex.
On the way to the airport the US forces had destroyed two Iraqi T-72 tanks with missiles, Captain Darrin Theriault said.
The mass surrender reportedly took place as the marines moved northwards from the town of Al-Kut towards the capital, Navy Captain Frank Thorp said at the US Central Command's forward planning base in Qatar.
Brigadier General Vincent Brooks announced at Central Command (Centcom) headquarters in Qatar that the airport had been renamed Baghdad International Airport, "and it is a gateway to the future of Iraq."
Overnight coalition bombing of Baghdad plunged the capital into a seemingly intentional power blackout that caused a cut in water supplies for the first time in the 16-day-old war to topple Saddam's regime.
Electricity came back tonight, however, in parts of central Baghdad.
Agencies