Saddam Hussein was shown on television again last night after urging Iraqis to defend Baghdad by attacking coalition forces across the country as US troops pushed inside the city for the first time.
State TV showed Saddam chairing a meeting of top military and political advisers, including his two sons, Uday and Qussay, a day after airing footage of the Iraqi leader touring his battered capital as part of a systematic drive to underline he was still in charge.
In a speech read on television on his behalf by Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf last night, Saddam told Iraqis Baghdad was still theirs to rescue.
Mr Sahhaf told reporters Iraq had won back Baghdad's main airport with a deadly assault on US troops that included suicide attacks, a claim quickly denied by the Americans.
Mr Sahhaf later told Abu Dhabi satellite TV that Iraqi forces had killed more than 300 US troops in heavy fighting around the city's international airport.
AFP correspondents saw dozens of Iraqi military vehicles burning on the streets after a battle near the road to the airport, which US Central Command said was "secure" and in coalition hands a day after its capture.
US commanders said 30 tanks penetrated deep into the capital and had come under rifle fire and attack by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). US officers said an American tank commander was shot dead and estimated some 1,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed.
But Baghdadis could find no sign of US troops in the capital later in the day.
"The enemy has concentrated all its forces against Baghdad, which has weakened its power in other parts of Iraq," Saddam said in the address.
"You must now weaken them (further), deepen their wounds and deprive them of what they have taken of your land, even though it is negligible, in order to reduce their chances and accelerate their defeat."
He added that Iraqis should "increase the number of attacks and go all out at the enemy to destroy them, following the orders in the written plans they have received.
"What has happened in Baghdad up until now is rather less than your Baghdad can put up with and God will protect it, even if it will have to cope with an even heavier burden.
"The enemy is lost (if they) believe they can heal the wounds they have already suffered by trying to attack Bagdad."
Mr Sahhaf insisted victory was near for Iraq.
"We have defeated them, in fact we have crushed them," he said of US and British forces. "We have pushed them outside the whole area of the airport."
He said suicide attacks had been launched on the American forces, part of "not conventional" combat methods he promised Friday.
US Central Command said the fight for Baghdad was "far from finished."
Coalition combat aircraft began flying all-day patrols over Baghdad to provide close air support for US ground forces probing the capital, said Lieutenant General T. Michael Moseley, commander of the US-led air campaign.
AFP