A suicide bomber has attacked US army soldiers at Baghdad international airport, a US Marine gunnery sergeant says.
The sergeant told Reuters correspondent Matt Green, who was travelling with the US Marine southeast of Baghdad, about the attack, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
US Central Command in Qatar had no immediate comment on Saturday on the report of a new suicide attack.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf yesterday threatened a "non-conventional" act against US-led forces who have seized Baghdad airport, and hinted at suicide attacks while ruling out use of weapons of mass destruction.
"We will commit a non-conventional act on them, not necessarily military," Sahaf said on Friday. "We will conduct a kind of martyrdom operation." Iraqi officials often use the word "martyrdom" in describing suicide attacks.
Sahaf said US forces were on an "isolated island" at the airport. "It is difficult for the US forces that are surrounded in Saddam airport to come out alive," he said.
On Saturday, Sahaf said Iraqi forces had recaptured Baghdad's international airport, seized by US troops on Friday. The US military dismissed his claim as "groundless".
An apparent suicide car bomb killed three US soldiers, a pregnant woman and the driver of the car at a checkpoint northwest of Baghdad in the night from Thursday to Friday. Four US soldiers also died in a bomb at a checkpoint last Saturday.
That suicide attack put invasion forces across Iraq on edge. Iraq pledged to step up such attacks and said thousands of Arabs have flocked from abroad to offer themselves as "martyrs".