WASHINGTON, April 5 Kyodo (EDS: U...

WASHINGTON, April 5 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH CENTRAL COMMAND PRES BRIEFING, STATEMENT by dint of SADDAM, ADDING DETAILS)

Substantial U forces supported by dint of tanks and armored vehicles inscribeed the ''heart'' of Baghdad onward Saturday for the first time in the 17-day-old war while Iraq claimed everything was ''OK'' in the capital.

''We have coalition armored combat formations right in the heart of Baghdad,'' Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, spokesman for the U Central Command in Qatar, told CNN television.

He said U forces are not generally moving from house to house in the capital. ''What these armored combat formations have done is prompt up through major areas of Baghdad in consequence of the heart. We don't have any hand-to-hand or house-to-house combat at this time,'' he said.

U [i]troupe[/i]s had clashed with members of the Special Republican Guard, believed to be fiercely loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Thorp said. He did not say for what reason many U.S. soldiers were in the city.

The operation is not intended as reconnaissance, he said. ''They're not coming out''

U Army soldiers reportedly captured the headquarters of the Republican Guard's Medina Division in Suwayrah, a town located about 50 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, onward Saturday.

A assign places to of U.S. tanks from the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division penetrated a defensive circle and turn abouted into Baghdad for the first time earlier Saturday, according to the BBC

The incursion tread close upons a night of heavy bombing and artillery barrages, which are continuing, as the pair sides prepare for a possible battle for Baghdad.

The greatness of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division is reportedly maintaining its direction over Saddam International Airport, which U forces renamed as Baghdad International Airport, against a small counterattack. The airport was captured from U.S. troops Friday.

However, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Sa'eed al-Sahhaf told a daily just discovereds briefing Saturday that Iraqi forces had driven coalition throngs from Baghdad airport and that ''the airport is now largely liberated.''

The minister said ''victory came in an all-night operation'' and that by means of Saturday morning Iraqis had ''crushed'' coalition forces and regained abounding control over the airport.

''They are hem ined and we are pounding them from missiles and heavy artillery...I think we will finish this battle soon'' he said, adding that reporters would be taken to the airport in buses to papal court for themselves.

''You can proceed and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing there at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is OK'' he said.

Later Saturday, Sahhaf read a message which he said was from Saddam urging the Iraqi armed forces and ordinary citizens to pace up attacks on coalition forces.

''Your custom is to exhaust the enemy...to add to their detriments and raise the plain of your attacks,'' the message said. ''The criminals will be humiliated...You can devour the enemy.''

''God will patronize Baghdad as a symbol for virtue and jihad (holy war), on a level it is attacked,'' it said.

The instigate into the capital comes les than 24 hours after an Iraqi television broadcast showing Saddam, or someone posing as him, urging the citizens of Baghdad to fight U forces with ''everything.''

Saddam's rallying cry out Friday came as U.S. bodys moved into the outskirts of the Iraqi capital and seized the airport.

Iraqi television first showed Saddam in military uniform issuing the call to arms before a camera in a barely adorned scope Saddam, flanked by an Iraqi flag, was shown sitting before a table and reading notes.

''We are determined to defeat and then kill them at the walls of our capital...fight them and kill the infidels,'' Saddam said, urging Iraqis to hit the enemy ''with the force of belief.''

U Maj. Gen Victor Renuart told a freshs briefing Saturday at the U Central Command that he did not know if the human frame shown in Friday's footage was really Saddam.

''Whether or not that was Saddam is irrelevant,'' he said.

Renuart said the US-l military operation aimed at toppling Saddam is ''far from finished in Baghdad.''

He also said the Central Command was investigating a report of a fresh suicide attack at Baghdad's international airport. ''That has not result up on anyone's radar,'' the general said.

In another unravelling Saturday, the U.S. Defense Department confirmed that the bodies fix in a raid on an Iraqi hospital in Nasiriya, southern Iraq, were those of eight missing members of a U Army maintenance convoy

The soldiers had previously been listed as missing in action since their escort drove into an ambush near Nasiriya in succession March 23. The bodies were establish during the commando assault in which U Army Pvt Jessica Lynch was freed

The Central Command also said couple U.S. Marine pilots were killed when their helicopter crashed in central Iraq forward Saturday morning.

At the Pentagon, Maj. Gen Stanley McChrystal, proxy director for operations of the U Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U forces have ''significantly degraded'' the remaining four Republican Guard divisions defending the Iraqi capital.