Powell saddened by governor's murder

"I was very saddened to hear of the assassination of the mayor of Baghdad," he told reporters in Thailand, the first stop on an Asian tour to assess aid efforts after the deadly tsunamis.

"It once again shows that there are these murderers and terrorists, former regime elements in Iraq, that don't want to see an election. They don't want to see the people of Iraq choose their own leadership."

Al-Haidari and one of his bodyguards were killed by gunmen in a roadside ambush.

The assassination came amid a spate of deadly attacks in the Iraqi capital in the past two days, as insurgents stepped up activity ahead of January 30 elections.

The attackers "want to go back to the past. They want to go back to the tyranny of the Saddam Hussein regime and that's not going to happen," Powell said.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called US President George W. Bush following Monday's spate of car bomb attacks in Iraq to discuss the existing obstacles to the January 30 Iraqi elections, The New York Times said Tuesday quoting top US officials.

The officials stressed that Allawi at no time suggested that the election be delayed. "There was no substantive conversation about the delay," an unnamed senior official said, adding that the Iraqi leader "wasn't even wobbly" about the issue.

However, the daily said other US and Iraqi officials interpreted Allawi's call as a sign that he is worried about his own party's prospects in the election and may be preparing the ground to make the case for a postponement of the vote.