Vieira de Mello's plane was fired on two weeks ago: Report

Al-Mustaqbal, owned by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, said Vieira de Mello had told the newspaper while in Cairo on August 8 that the incident happened while he was on his way from Ankara to Baghdad.

He said the plane carrying him and his advisor, former Lebanese cabinet minister Ghassan Salameh, came "under fire" while landing at Baghdad International Airport.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

Al-Mustaqbal said Vieira de Mello had asked it not to publish the information.

Meanwhile former UN human rights chief Mary Robinson yesterday called for a new Security Council resolution on Iraq, a day after a bomb attack ripped through UN headquarters in Baghdad leaving at least 17 people dead.

"The world must rally and not just the coalition and occupation forces that are in Iraq at the moment, (the) United States, Britain and others but also France, Germany, India, Brazil, South Africa," Robinson told BBC radio.

"I think there should be a new resolution at the Security Council," she said, describing the massive truck bombing as "an appalling blow."

"It is not enough to lower flags. It has to be real desire to change the terms on the ground in Iraq and I believe it can only be done by a strong leadership UN mandate and a wide presence on the ground," she said.

"It is the worst attack on the UN that I can ever remember," Robinson said. Among the dead was the top UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who last year succeeded Robinson, a former Irish president, as the UN's rights chief.

AFP from Ankara reports that Turkey sent a specialised search-and-rescue team to Baghdad, at the request of the United States, to comb through rubble at the UN headquarters devastated by a bomb attack on Tuesday, an Interior ministry spokesman said.

The 10-man team, which specialises in searching for earthquake victims buried in collapsed buildings, and two rescue dogs were to be flown to Baghdad by a US plane, the spokesman told AFP.

The bomb attack killed the top UN envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and at least 16 other people. There were fears that more people could be buried under the rubble.