Attempt on Iraqi cleric: 3 killed

Meanwhile, a Brazilian air force plane carrying the body of the slain UN envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, arrived in Geneva, a day after a memorial ceremony in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro.

And Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council has taken its quest for international legitimacy to Egypt before heading on to Jordan.

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The three men who died Sunday in a bomb attack in Najaf were employees of one of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics, Grand Ayatollah Seyed Mohammed Said al-Hakim.

"Two bodyguards and one employee of the house were killed. His holiness al-Hakim and his son were both in the room next to the bomb. Thank God they're both safe," said the ayatollah's spokesman, Abdul Hussein al-Kadi.

Hakim is one of the four top clerics in the Hawza, the highest religious authority of Iraq's Shiite community, which makes up some 60 per cent of the 25-million population and was systematically oppressed by Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim elite.

Kadi said bodyguards protecting Hakim's house saw four bearded men in a white car drop a cooking gas bottle near the wall of Hakim's house in Najaf, 180 km south of Baghdad.

The ensuing blast left a 1.5 metre (five foot) hole in the side of the house.

Najaf, the power base of Iraq's Shiites, is locked in a battle between those prepared to cooperate with the US-led administration and those who champion resistance.

The struggle by supporters of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr to push the religious hierarchy into a more antagonistic approach towards the Americans has seen three attacks on mainstream clerics in recent weeks.