One member of a US religious group was killed and three others wounded in an ambush on their taxi while they were travelling in Iraq last week, the US military said yesterday. The latest death brings to 539 the number of US service members have died since the United States launched the Iraq war in March. Most have died since President Bush declared an end to active combat May 1.

The civilians, all US citizens, were found on Saturday in a hospital in Mahmudiyah, 30 km south of Baghdad, by US paratroopers on patrol, a spokesman for the US military said.

?They were travelling in an Iraqi taxi from Babylon to Baghdad when people in a white sedan ambushed them with small arms fire,? the spokesman said. He said it was not clear on which day the victims were attacked nor which religious group they represented.

A number of US civilians, most of them contractors working with the US military on reconstruction efforts, have been killed or wounded in similar attacks in Iraq.

On Sunday, Iraqi police captured a former leading member of Saddam Hussein?s government, number 41 on Washington?s ?most wanted? list.

<B>Disrupting handover</B>

?What is special about this operation is that the Iraqi police alone conducted it. It is a distinguished operation which should be a source of joy for Iraqis because they now have police they can depend on,? Iraq?s Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhim said. He said police had arrested Muhammad Zimam Abd al-Razzaq al-Sadun, a senior member of Saddam?s toppled Baath Party. ?We are interrogating him now, we will see what we?ll do later,? Kadhim said when asked if Sadun would be handed over to the US military.

Guerrillas are mounting increasingly bold raids against US-backed Iraqi security forces with the apparent aim of disrupting US plans for a handover of power from US occupation forces to Iraqis, set for June 30.

In Kuwait, Iraq?s leaders and six neighbouring states called for a central role for the United Nations in the transfer. The United Nations, which sent a mission to Iraq last week, is trying to resolve a dispute between Iraq?s majority Shi?ites, who want elections before the handover, and Washington which says there is no time to organise them.

The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said he was awaiting the UN?s recommendations on the handover, but insisted it must come by June 30. However, he showed some willingness to speed up the election timetable. Washington?s original plan was to hand power to an interim administration, pending elections in early 2005. ?If we can do it sooner and have it be legitimate and if the UN and we agree that that can be done, then that?s not a problem if it?s the end of (this) year or early January,? he said.

The foreign minister of Iraq?s US-backed Governing Council said it would be extremely hard to hold elections before a mid-year handover.

?This is the one opportunity and we don?t want to squander or spoil it. We must handle it with care, and we must have a fair and credible election so that people don?t challenge the results of the process,? Hoshiyar Zebari said after the regional summit in Kuwait.

Since the United States launched its war in March to oust Saddam and end his 24-year rule, 44 of 55 Iraqis wanted by the United States have been captured or killed. Saddam?s former lieutenant, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, number six on the list, is the highest-ranking official still at large. The former Iraqi leader, number one on the list, was captured in December. Zebari said on Sunday Iraq would ask the United States to hand Saddam over after the transfer of power and to change his prisoner of war status. ?Yes, we will demand changing his status and handing him over to Iraqi justice to put him on trial,? he said.

Nadim Ladki