"I mean some kind of martyrdom, and there are very very new ways which we are going to carry out," Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf.

Sahhaf recalled the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, when French troops were surrounded and forced to surrender by Vietnamese forces, leading to the end of French rule in Indochina.

"Tonight we will carry out something that is not conventional against them, not military. It will be a great example to them," he told a press conference.

But the minister, whose country has insisted it does not have weapons of mass destruction, ruled out the use of unconventional weapons in reply to a journalist's question.

"Unless they surrender quickly, I don't think there's any chance that they will survive," he said, referring to the US forces. "We consider it an isolated island ... They are completely surrounded."

"In a joint effort between Iraqi people, Saddam's Fedayeen (militia) and tribesmen ... we have the determination to keep them in a small island, another Dien Bien Phu," he said.

The US military, meanwhile, said its troops seized control of the strategic prize of Baghdad's international airport on Friday and were flushing out remaining pockets of resistance.

Three US troops, a pregnant woman and her driver were killed in a car explosion at a checkpoint late Thursday, according to US Central Command.

The circumstances were similar to those of a car bomb blast on March 29 that Iraq said would be followed by other suicide bombings against the invading US and British troops.

WAR.WIRE