There was no sign of a US military presence in Baghdad despite American officials' claim that coalition troops were in town to stay, AFP correspondents reported. On the west bank of the Tigris river where most government buildings are based, quiet had returned after a tense morning, enforced by patrolling soldiers and other heavily armed men. Many of them were seen heading toward Saddam International Airport on the southwestern outskirts of the city, which US forces announced they captured Friday and now held "secure".

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf had said earlier that President Saddam Hussein's crack Republican Guard had driven coalition forces out of the facility in a prelude to a final rout in the capital.

Navy Captain Frank Thorp, a spokesman for the US Central Command, said earlier of the early-morning thrust into Baghdad: "This wasn't a patrol -- go in and come out."

"We had the opportunity and we moved in," Thorp said. "It was done in a deliberate way. When we had the opportunity we took it and moved forward into the middle of the city."

The city seemed strangely normal in the afternoon.

While some militia fighters equipped with automatic weapons and anti-tank rocket launchers manned city intersections, others were less visible, holed up in entrenched positions.

Soldiers and elite Republican Guard members and militiamen were posted at a major intersection leading out of the city but appeared as steely nerved as ever.

In the Dora-Yarmuk in the southwest of the city, there were traces of combat earlier in the day, including blown-up cars and casings of heavy machine guns where Iraqi armoured tanks and anti-aircraft artillery had been that morning.

Even in the Al-Mamun district near the airport, motorists took to the roads and no explosions were heard.

PHOTO CAPTION

Army medics on a runway of Baghdad's international airport attend to two wounded US Army soldiers, after US Army troops from the 3rd Infantry Division battled Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi forces say they have since forced US troops back from the airport. (AFP/Romeo Graced)