Bomb blasts and artillery fire rocked Baghdad today as US forces strengthened their positions outside the capital city.

Reuters

said the explosions, accompanied by the roar of warplanes over the city centre, echoed from the west and southwest, where US forces reinforced the international airport, which they seized o­n Friday.

As US forces closed in and Baghdad residents fled their battered capital. Iraqi television reported authorities slapped a ban o­n travel out of the city between 6.00pm and 6.00am beginning tonight night for security reasons.

Meanwhile, CNN said US forces with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were near the centre of the Iraqi capital this morning for a second day of reconnaissance missions.

Earlier, a flow of US tanks and armoured vehicles rumbled over the Euphrates as US forces strengthened their positions around Baghdad.

"We're pushing the bulk of the 3rd Infantry Division over the Euphrates toward Baghdad," Reuters quoted Colonel John Peabody, commander of the Engineer Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division as saying.

The news agency's correspondent Luke Baker - who is with the Engineer Brigade - said he heard a constant rumble of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and fuel trucks push up toward Baghdad through the night.

He said units of the 3rd Infantry Division were securing the southern perimeter of Baghdad, while others, backed up by the 101st Airborne Division, were holding the city's main airport.

Other 3rd Infantry troops, which had helped secure the perimeter of the city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad, to allow the push toward the capital in the last few days, were now bringing up the rear.

Citing military sources, Baker said Marine units were to the east of Baghdad and a unit of Marines was probing about 2km from the northeastern city outskirts.

Other units of the 3rd Infantry were probing slightly to the west and to the north of the airport.

Yesterday, US tanks made a reconnaissance mission into the suburbs of Baghdad before returning south.

US and British forces are proceeding with caution for fear they could be sucked into a vicious street battle.

More raids

Meanwhile, BBC reported that coalition commanders have promised more raids o­n Baghdad to drive home their claims that the Iraqi leadership is losing control.

They said yesterday's incursion by US ground forces was intended to test Iraqi responses and future raids will be aimed at specific targets.

The officials also claimed that Republican Guard units tasked with protecting the capital were "dead".

According to these officials, coalition forces have also moved o­n to target Tikrit - the ancestral home and stronghold of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

However, Iraqi authorities dismissed this claims, including yesterday's incursion.

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said Iraqi forces had repulsed an American attack from the south, claiming: "We were able to chop off their rotten heads."

State television read a statement from Saddam Hussein and then broadcast pictures of him and both sons at a military meeting.

Important message

At the Central Command headquarters in Qatar, US Major-General Gene Renuart said coalition forces were now able to enter any part of Baghdad any time they want.

He stressed that yesterday's raid o­n Baghdad from the captured international airport o­n the outskirts of the city sent an important message.

"I think that it was very clear to the people of Baghdad that coalition forces were in the city," he said.

"That image is important, and so I think being in the daytime was a very clear statement to the Iraqi regime as well that we can move at times and places of our choosing, even into their capital city," he added.