BAGHDAD, April 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Amidst the mounting propaganda warfare raging between Iraq and the U.S.-led troops, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Sa’eed al-Sahhaf said Sunday, April 6, that the Iraqi fighters shot dead some 50 U.S. troops in the puzzling airport battle, while the U.S. Central Command said that up to 2,000 Iraqi troops have been killed in the fighting.

Briefing reporters on the latest developments of the 17-day-old U.S.-led war on Iraq, Sahhaf said the Iraqi fighters succeeded in “killing 50 enemy soldiers" in fighting around the capital's Saddam International Airport.

“Yesterday (Saturday, April 5) we attacked the enemy with missiles. We killed 50 soldiers in enemy ranks,” Sahhaf said.

“The Iraqi fighters destroyed six tanks, shot down two Apache attack helicopters and destroyed three personnel carriers,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials Sunday displayed the wreck of a U.S. Abrams tank on the outskirts of Baghdad, saying it was knocked out in intense fighting which killed five Americans the day before.

Iraqis with Kalashnikov rifles danced triumphantly over the damaged and charred tank in the Sayadia area, a southern entrance to the capital.

"We destroyed it with an anti-tank rocket along with the column of trucks and vehicles that were following it…They're all dead," Ahmed Khoder, a member of the special Republican Guard, told reporters.

Khoder said the fighting took place Saturday between 6:00 and 8:00 am (0200 and 0400 GMT).

“American planes wanted to blow the tank up so we couldn't take it but the bomb landed to the side,” Khoder said.

Iraqi forces "have defeated them (American troops). We have crushed them. We have pushed them outside the whole area of the airport."

“The whole trend has been changed. The operation is moving in our interests and I think we are going to finalize soon,” he noted.

Iraqis celebrate the destruction of a U.S. Abrams tank on the outskirts of Baghdad

On the other extreme, the U.S. Central Command said, for his part, more than 2,000 Iraqi troops have been killed in the U.S. ground push into Baghdad.

An official at the Command's base in Qatar said some reports coming from the battlefield indicated that the figure of 2,000 was "very low" and that the actual toll would turn out to be significantly higher.

That figure is believed to have included a mix of regular troops, elite Republican Guard forces and paramilitaries fiercely loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The official said that in other parts of Iraq, a large number of unit leaders wanted to hand themselves over to U.S.-led forces but declined to say where.

A U.S. officer said Saturday that an estimated 1,000 Iraqi troops were killed when tanks and ground forces made an initial raid into Baghdad and had fierce battles with Iraqi forces as they swept through a sector of the city.

U.S. Forces Control 95% Of Airport

“The Iraqi fighters killed 50 enemy soldiers, destroyed 6 tanks, shot down 2 Apache attack helicopters and destroyed 3 personnel carriers,” Sahhaf

Add to that, the commander of the 3^rd Infantry Division’s First Brigade told AFP Sunday that the U.S. forces hold 95 percent control of Baghdad's Saddam International Airport with at least 5,000 troops deployed on the site.

“I'm not sure it will ever be 100 percent,” said Colonel Will Grimsley.

He claimed that troops had found a tunnel at the airport's main terminal and still did not know where it led.

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rutter, commander of the brigade's 2-7 Infantry Battalion, said his unit had spent the past few days securing ground outside the airport “so when other units come out, it's safe.”

A battalion of the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is also now at the airport, Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant Eric Lake confirmed.

Bulk of Republican Guards Eliminated

In addition, a U.S. intelligence officer claimed Sunday that U.S. forces had smashed most of the six active Republican Guard divisions defending the Iraqi regime.

Major John Altman, intelligence officer with the First Brigade of the army's 3rd Infantry Division (3ID), said the U.S.-led offensive had reduced the much vaunted Republican Guard to just “three brigades and a battalion.”

Only the armored Hammurabi Division remains intact to any significant degree, with two brigades operating, Altman told AFP, giving the following breakdown:

- Medina Division (armoured): destroyed by the 3ID

- Baghdad Division: destroyed by U.S. marines

- Nebachadnezzar Division: most of its destroyed

- Adnan Division: largely destroyed by the 3ID, one brigade left

- Al Nida Division (armoured): mostly destroyed by the 3ID, but a composite battalion remains

Iraq's Republican Guard was trumpeted as an elite squad composed of the best-trained and most highly-motivated men in Saddam's army fighting with the most modern weapons such as T-72 tanks.

The Guard had a total fighting force of some 60,000 men and was once made up of eight divisions. Two divisions were scrapped after the 1991 Gulf War that saw Iraqi forces chased from Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition.