"I mean some kind of martyrdom, and there are very very new ways which we are going to carry out," said Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf, whose country says it has thousands of volunteers ready for suicide attacks.

Sahhaf recalled the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, when French troops were surrounded and forced to surrender by Vietnamese forces, leading to the end of French rule in Indochina.

"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 said its troops seized control of the strategic prize of Baghdad's international airport on Friday and were flushing out remaining pockets of resistance.

In his military briefing, Sahhaf said Iraq's elite Republican Guards units had clashed with US forces airlifted to Abu Gharib north of Baghdad, destroying six tanks and three armoured personnel carriers (APCs).

"This force is now isolated from the force airlifted to Saddam International Airport," he said.

In another clash at Falluja to the west of Baghdad, "our forces launched an attack on one column of the US and British enemy. They stopped and started to flee," said the minister.

Sahhaf said a combined force of Iraqi tribesmen, ruling Baath Party fighters and Saddam's Fedayeen inflicted "heavy losses" on US troops between Karbala and the capital.

Further south, nine US tanks and an APC were destroyed south of Al-Kut, according to the minister.

SPACE.WIRE