BAGHDAD - Iraq warned of "martyrdom" and other unconventional attacks later Friday against US troops who it said were "isolated" at Saddam International Airport on the outskirts of the capital.
"I mean some kind of martyrdom, and there are very new ways which we are going to carry out," said Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf.
Sahhaf recalled the battle of Dien Bien Phu, a 1954 battle which changed the course of France's war in Vietnam and led to the surrender and defeat of the French.
"Tonight we will carry out something that is not conventional against them, not military. It will be a great example to them," he told a press conference.
But the minister, whose country has insisted it does not have weapons of mass destruction, ruled out the use of unconventional weapons in reply to a journalist's question.
"Unless they surrender quickly, I don't think there's any chance that they will survive," he said, referring to the US forces. "We consider it an isolated island ... They are completely surrounded."
"In a joint effort between Iraqi people, Saddam's Fedayeen militia and tribesmen ... we have the determination to keep them in a small island, another Dien Bien Phu," he said.
The US military, meanwhile, said its troops seized control of the strategic prize of Baghdad's international airport on Friday and were flushing out remaining pockets of resistance.
US Central Command said US ground troops have found underground facilities at Baghdad airport where there could be Iraqi forces waiting to wage battle.
"We found that there are underground facilities at this airport," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters at Centcom's forward base here in Qatar.
"We don't know what we'll find there. There may in fact be someone to fight in those underground facilities," he said.
A US officer however told a reporter at the airport Friday that all buildings were being searched and tunnels were suspected to exist.
Brooks earlier said that Saddam International Airport had been renamed after coalition forces took effective control of it earlier in the day.
"The airport now has a new name, Baghdad International Airport, and it is a gateway to the future of Iraq," he said.
Like much of Iraq's infrastructure, the airport was named after President Saddam Hussein, whose regime the invading US-British coalition has vowed to overthrow.
"We made efforts more than a week ago to ensure that (the airport) could not be used for the take-off of any regime leaders," he said.
"Most importantly we preserved it for the future of Iraq, and that's the most significant aspect of what we'll get out of having that terrain," he said.
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