BAGHDAD, Jan 9: US Secretary of State Colin Powell voiced concern on Sunday about the future of Iraq after the elections as Britain announced a joint team would be sent to the war-torn country to reassess security.

As Britain was also reportedly considering sending more troops to Iraq for the January 30 vote, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the priority must be to build up the local security forces.

On the ground, another US soldier died in a roadside bombing and the US military apologized for killing at least five civilians when an air strike hit the wrong target in the north of the country.

"I think we all are worried about what's going to happen after the elections," Powell told US network ABC. "But the elections are a necessary next step. "What is the alternative to no election? Just continue going along with an appointed government?" he said according to an advance transcript of the interview.

Sunni Arab insurgents have vowed to try to derail the polls, which are likely to be won by the majority Shia community in Iraq which had been suppressed under ousted leader Saddam Hussein.

Sunnis from across the political spectrum have voiced concern that, whether through fear or conviction, most of their community will boycott the vote, leaving the new national assembly dominated by the majority Shias. But Powell insisted that, while the election will neither end the insurgency nor heal divisions between Shias and Sunnis, "those dangers don't go away by postponing or putting off an election."

He was responding in part to comments made earlier this week by former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, who warned that the Iraq elections "rather than turning out to be a promising turning point, have the great potential for deepening the conflict."

Blair meanwhile said that the United States and Britain will send a team to Iraq to reassess the security situation, saying the insurgents around Baghdad had to be "dealt a blow".

"What President (George W.) Bush and myself have agreed is that we are sending a team there just to review the situation because the key thing there is to build the capability of the Iraqi security forces themselves.

"In the end there is a limit to what the British, the American and other countries' troops can do. The Iraqis want the power for themselves, they want to take control of their own destiny. The way to do that is to build up their own security forces."

Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that the government would this week announce the politically risky move of sending up to 650 more troops to Iraq to provide security during the election.

Up to 650 soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, currently based in Cyprus as a designated Iraq reserve force, would be deployed, it reported. Although the additional troops will be based in the relatively peaceful south of the country, around Basra, where the bulk of Britain's 8,500 existing soldiers are based, they could be moved to more dangerous areas such as Baghdad if needed, the report said.

"It will be very dangerous and, unfortunately, casualties are expected," the paper quoted a senior army officer as saying. Such a mission would be fraught with political peril for Blair, whose popularity has been hit by his decision to join the US-led March 2003 invasion.

The US military has already announced it is boosting its forces to about 150,000 for the polls. The death of a soldier in a bomb attack on his patrol in the capital Sunday brought US losses since the invasion to 1,345, including 1,058 who died in combat.

The US military said that five civilians were mistakenly killed when an F-16 jet dropped a 500-pound laser-guided bomb on a house south of the main northern city of Mosul during a US army search for a suspected insurgent leader on Saturday.

"The house was not the intended target for the air strike. The intended target was another location nearby," it said. "The multinational force in Iraq deeply regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives."

The military promised an investigation into the incident, which came as US troops swept the area for insurgents ahead of the elections. An official from a joint US-Iraqi security centre said the air strike targeted a suspected insurgent hideout in the village of al-Aitha.

He put the death toll at 13, including four women and three children, and said the dead were all from the same family. It was the latest in a series of controversial air strikes by the Americans.

In May, a US air strike near Qaim, a town on the border with Syria, killed around 40 people. Locals claimed that the strike hit a wedding party, while the Americans said the house was a gathering point for "terrorists". Seven Ukrainian soldiers and a Kazakh meanwhile died in an accident, Polish public radio said. -AFP