Iraq?s interim government yesterday again postponed an announcement on a security law to curb insurgents but gave no explanation for the latest delay.

Prime minister Iyad Allawi cancelled a scheduled news conference on the law at short notice and an official at his office said no new time for the announcement had been set.

The government had earlier planned to unveil the measures at a news conference on Saturday, but cancelled it at the last minute.

Since Allawi?s government formally regained sovereign powers from the US-led occupation a week ago, senior officials have said it would impose tough security measures, reinstate the death penalty and offer a partial amnesty in a carrot-and-stick strategy to take the sting out of a bloody insurgency.

President Ghazi al-Yawar was quoted as saying the interim government had agreed to bring back a 1960s national safety law, which includes provisions against terrorism and breaches of public order, but stops short of full-scale emergency law.

Yawar and other officials also pledged to restore capital punishment, suspended during the 14-month US-British occupation. The penalty could apply to Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top lieutenants if they are convicted by a special tribunal.

The 12 men appeared before an Iraqi judge on Thursday to hear they would be charged over the invasion of Kuwait, ethnic cleansing of Kurds, suppression of Kurdish and Shi?ite revolts, and murders of political and religious foes over three decades.

While vowing to punish Baathists with ?blood on their hands?, criminals and foreign militants pursuing their own anti-American jihad in Iraq, Allawi also spoke of an amnesty for Iraqis who fought the occupation out of nationalism.

Violence has racked Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam last year. Insurgents have attacked USforces, Iraqi policemen and oil industry targets across the country.

In the latest attacks, a roadside bomb wounded five civilians in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, police said.

Guerrilla attacks

An Iraqi civilian was killed and four were wounded in the southern city of Basra when mortar rounds fired by guerrillas at the main government building hit nearby homes instead.

Iraqi technicians were trying to repair oil pipelines damaged by weekend sabotage attacks that halved crude exports, the mainstay of Iraq?s economy, oil officials said.

There was no word on the fate of a Lebanese-born US marine after conflicting statements from kidnap groups which first said they had beheaded him and then denied it.

Allawi said his government?s first week in office since the handover had been successful. ?We have witnessed a drop in insurgency activities so far. We hope this drop will continue,? he told ABC television. ?I am sure that we will win,? said Allawi, whose government shares Washington?s view that Saddam supporters and foreign Islamic militants are behind guerrilla attacks.

But he said militias, including those loyal to firebrand Shi?ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who led a rebellion against the US-led occupation, must lay down their weapons.

?The position of the government is very clear. There is no room for any militias to operate in Iraq,? Allawi said.

<B>Allawi: no need for troops from Iraq?s neighbours </B>

Iraq does not want peacekeeping forces from neighbouring countries, to protect sensitivities among its myriad ethnic groups and religious sects, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in remarks aired yesterday.

?There is a decision taken by the Governing Council when it was still in office. This decision took into consideration sensitivies in Iraq,? Allawi told Al Arabiya television in an interview due to be aired in full later yesterday.

?We decided that it would be better to avoid raising sensitivities we don?t need right now...

?Our neighbours, however, can help us more by protecting their borders and curbing infiltrations,? Allawi added.

Jordan last week said it would consider sending peacekeeping troops if asked. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari declined the offer, saying his country would welcome troops from Arab countries that do not share its borders.

Iraq?s Governing Council has also rejected a proposal to send peacekeepers from Turkey.

Currently no Arab states participate in the mainly American multinational force that remains in Iraq with the approval of the interim government that formally took over sovereignty last week. However, Yemen and Bahrain have offered to send troops.

Alistair Lyon