UN staff back in Baghdad

Among the dead was the Secretary General's special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

His replacement is former Pakistani diplomat Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who arrived in the capital on Friday. But although the UN is back in the country, the organisation is keeping a low profile.

Qazi spent his first day at work in Baghdad meeting the prime minister and president of the interim government and talking up the prospects of the national conference that is to be held on Sunday.

On Sunday, 1,000 delegates to the national conference are meant to gather in the same place to elect a national assembly to support the work of the interim government.

That next step in the Iraqi political process was due two weeks ago but was deferred at the request of the UN to ensure the conference was more representative.

They will meet at a critical time.

AFP adds: Iraq yesterday said it wanted multinational police forces to operate under a United Nations banner to control the violent insurgency across the war-ravaged country.

The Iraqi government would soon discuss such a proposal with the new UN special envoy to Iraq, interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim said.

"The security situation in Iraq is such that there are a lot of vacuums across the country which breeds undesirable elements," he said.

"To erase these vacuums what we need is more international police forces."