Colonel Will Grimsley said the tank battalion task force from the 3rd Infantry Division punched their way toward the heart of Baghdad on a road leading from the capital's main airport, 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the southwest.

Grimsley, commander of the division's First Brigade, said the raid was a show of force a day after US forces seized control of most of the airport as a key prize in their 16-day-old campaign.

"It's called 'let me poke you in the eye because we can and you can't do anything about it'," the colonel said, adding that the move "started at first light."

Grimsley said elements of the division's Second Brigade had come under rifle fire and attack by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) as they moved on the heart of Baghdad.

US forces took control of the airport on Friday -- renaming it Baghdad International Airport.

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rutter, commander of the 2-7 Infantry Battalion of the 1st Brigade, said that clashes with Iraqi troops continued around the airport late into Friday.

"Between 100-120 enemy" fighters had been killed by his battalion in clashes on Friday afternoon and Friday evening after they launched a counter-offensive, said Rutter.

Six Iraqi T-72 tanks had been destroyed in the exchanges by a combination of javelin laser-guided missiles and other conventional anti-tank weaponry around the sprawling airport complex, he added.

They also destroyed five Iraqi armoured personnel carriers and "teams" of Iraqis firing rocket-propelled grenades.

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