No bombing or fighting were visible at the airport, which lies 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the centre of Baghdad.

"The airport is safe," airport manager Muafiq Abdullah al-Jaburi told journalists escorted there by the information ministry.

Although airplanes have neither landed nor taken off at the airport since March 19, a day before the launch of the US-led war on Iraq, Jaburi said that employees were "continuing to go about their work normally, according to set rotas."

"Maybe the Americans occupied another airport in the desert," joked Jaburi.

The airport's radar system and other installations "were hit in the first days of the war but the airport is currently safe," he said.

US military officials said earlier in the day that US troops leading an advance on Baghdad had moved near the Iraqi capital's airport.

"I can confirm they're outside the airport," said Major Randi Steffy, a spokeswoman for the US Central Command in Qatar.

US commanders reported a breakthrough Wednesday in their campaign to topple President Saddam Hussein, saying they had effectively destroyed the Medina and Baghdad divisions of the crack Republican Guard troops defending the approaches to the capital.

SPACE.WIRE