An Iraqi airport security guard walks in the lobby of Baghdad Saddam International Airport

BAGHDAD, April 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport came under U.S. artillery fire late Thursday, April 3, leaving dozens killed and injured, witnesses reported.

An Iraqi TV cameraman returning from the airport around 9:45 pm (1845 GMT) told Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondents in Baghdad that he had seen incoming artillery shells and dozens of dead and wounded.

The cameraman added that he had also seen artillery shells raining down on the airport, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from central Baghdad, more than three hours earlier.

Anglo-American forces took partial control Thursday night of Saddam International Airport, a U.S. military source on the ground told an AFP correspondent there.

When asked whether U.S.-led forces controlled the airport, Major Morris Goins, operations officer for the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division said: "We own part of it".

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf had earlier dismissed statements by U.S. commanders and reports from AFP journalists on the ground with U.S. troops that American forces were now on the outskirts of Baghdad and very close to the city's airport.

He told reporters here that U.S. troops were "not even 100 miles" from Baghdad, but said Thursday's air strikes in and around the city had killed 27 civilians and wounded 193.

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

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

In Baghdad, a statement attributed to President Saddam Hussein and read on state television said Iraqi forces would never let the capital be taken.

"Many thousands of soldiers are defending the homeland ... and they will not allow them to go into Baghdad without defeating and repelling them," the statement vowed.

U.S.-led Troops "Cannot Take Over" Baghdad: Aziz

"Baghdad is well-defended, and it will be a huge, costly war with us, if they approach Baghdad," Aziz said

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz vowed Thursday that advancing U.S.-led forces would not be able to take over Baghdad and promised a "huge and costly" war.

"Baghdad is well-defended, and it will be a huge, costly war with us, if they approach Baghdad," Aziz said in an interview in the Iraqi capital with the Italian television RAI UNO.

"They cannot take over Baghdad, it is not an easy city. It is a very large city ... very well-armed and very well-defended, very well-prepared for such an eventuality," he said.

"It would be a fierce fight and we are sure that they are not going to win it," asserted Aziz.

He reported last meeting President Saddam Hussein in a meeting on Wednesday, April 2.

"I met with him yesterday... it lasted for several hours. He is in good shape. His moral is great, he is a great leader, and he is in full control of the country," he said.

The country's "political and military leadership are all in good shape, and they are fighting and they are in full control," Aziz said.

Iraqi satellite television aired footage of the Iraqi president in military uniform chairing a meeting attended by several members of the cabinet and officials from the ruling Baath party, although there was no indication as to when the pictures might have been recorded.

Aziz said Arab nationals who have arrived in Iraq as volunteers willing to give their lives for the fight against the U.S.-led forces were "already in the battle, they are dispersed among the Iraqi resistance."

Asked if they were ready to carry out bombings attack soon, Aziz said: "inshallah (God willing), yes, we hope so."

He also made indirect accusations against countries that opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

"A number of those countries were not pro-Iraqi. They were pro-themselves, when they resisted the American policy regarding Iraq. Actually they did it for themselves, for their own interests," he said.

"They never really supported us," he said.

Asked if there was still a chance for a diplomatic solution, Aziz said: "not at this moment."