08 February 2004	Sunday	16 Zilhaj 1424

BAGHDAD, Feb 7: UN experts arrived here on Saturday to assess whether elections can be held for Iraq's first post-occupation government, after the country's most revered Shia leader said reports of a plot to kill him were a ploy to undermine his insistence that they can.

The 12 experts will stay in Iraq for up to 10 days, a visit shielded by rigorous security, a source close to the United Nations said.

"I am very pleased to announce that my fact-finding team has now arrived in Baghdad and is about to begin intensive consultations with Iraqi leaders and the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority)," UN chief Kofi Annan said in New York.

The team was to study the feasibility of organizing direct polls before June 30, rather than handing self-rule to a transitional assembly selected by provincial caucuses, as envisioned by the US-led authority.

"The UN team will endeavour to meet representatives of all constituencies and listen to all Iraqi views and perspectives, without excluding any," Mr Annan said in a statement.

"I hope the work of this team will help resolve the impasse over the transitional political process leading to the establishment of a provisional government for Iraq," Mr Annan added.

It is the first full-scale UN mission in Iraq since expatriate staff left after their offices were bombed in August, and sources said the team is unlikely to move around the country unless absolutely necessary.

Indeed, the US-led occupation authority remained tight-lipped about its arrival and refused to discuss any security arrangements for the team.

"I will not be commenting at all on the schedule or the activities of the UN team. All those questions I refer to the UN," spokesman Dan Senor said at a Baghdad news conference.

Mr Annan ordered the mission after the CPA failed to broker a compromise deal with Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani over its tight timetable for handing over self-rule to a transitional government.

Although US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday that the United States still intended to hand over power in Iraq at the end of June, he left open the possibility of a postponement depending on UN advice.

"Of course, we would take whatever they (the UN experts) say into account as we move forward, but for now we're sticking with the plan and the (Iraqi interim) Governing Council is sticking with the plan," he said.

Ayatollah Sistani, the driving force behind demands for direct polls, on Saturday issued a statement "categorically denying" there had been any plot to kill him.

He lashed out at such reports "in part and in whole" for "spreading insecurity before the arrival of a UN experts team".

Shia politician Muwaffaq al Rubaie had sent shockwaves through Iraq by saying that Ayatollah Sistani had been the target of an assassination bid on Thursday in Najaf, south of Baghdad.

TWO IRAQIS SHOT DEAD: An Iraqi man died on Saturday from his wounds after US soldiers opened fire on him and two others while investigating a suspected home-made bomb in the town of Samarra on Friday, the US military said.

Soldiers were investigating a possible improvised explosive device on the side of the road when three Iraqis in a truck opened fire.

Also on Friday, helicopter patrols from the Fourth Infantry Division shot dead another Iraqi after spotting smoke trails near Balad, 75 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital, following a rocket attack on a US military base.

In the northern oil-rich centre of Kirkuk, American soldiers rounded up 18 Iraqis and seized a cache of rockets outside the northern city. -AFP