The Black Vault - Slain U.N. Iraq Chief's Body Begins Journey Home

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - International officials vowed on Friday their work in Iraq would go on as they paid their last respects to the head of the U.N. mission in the country, one of 24 people killed in this week's devastating truck bomb attack.

In a ceremony at Baghdad airport before Sergio Vieira de Mello's body was placed on a plane to begin a journey back to his native Brazil, a colleague revealed one of his dying wishes was that the United Nations continued to operate in Iraq.

"Even under the most extreme pain, pinned down under rubble in his office, he said to First Sergeant Von Zehle Jr. of the coalition forces trying to rescue him: 'Don't let them pull the mission out'," colleague Benon Sevan told mourners.

Underscoring the continuing volatility and violence of postwar Iraq, the U.S. military said a gunman had shot dead a serviceman on duty with a Marine unit on Thursday in the town of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad.

Occupying U.S. soldiers have faced daily guerrilla ambushes since the end of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein in April, but such attacks were overshadowed this week by the suspected suicide bombing at the U.N. compound on Tuesday.

"We will not be deterred by any act of terrorism," Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer said at the memorial ceremony. The diplomat broke down in tears at one point.

Six pall-bearers loaded Vieira de Mello's coffin, draped in a blue U.N. flag, into a Brazilian air force jet. Two bagpipers played "Amazing Grace." The jet was to stop off in Geneva to collect Vieira de Mello's wife and two children.

"STAY THE COURSE"

"We will overcome -- we will stay the course," said Sevan, the director of the U.N. oil-for-food program, responsible for supplying Iraq's basic needs while it was under sanctions.

The dynamic Vieira de Mello, 55, was one of the United Nations's top officials, regarded as a possible future secretary-general. He served in many of the world's troublespots.

The New York Times reported on Friday that investigators were focusing on the possibility that Iraqi security guards at the U.N. compound had assisted the bombers. A U.N. spokeswoman in Iraq declined to comment on the report.

A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the attack, Dubai-based Al Arabiya reported. The Arabic television channel said the group called itself the "Armed Vanguards of the Second Mohammed Army."

U.S. officials have said Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists are most likely to have been behind the attack.

The United Nations has been keen to stress the bombing will not force it to give up its mission of political and economic reconstruction and humanitarian work in Iraq. But it is clear that it will be severely affected, at least in the short term.

Up to half the United Nations's Baghdad-based staff will have left Iraq by the end of the week, a U.N. official in neighboring Jordan said. Staff wounded in Tuesday's attack or traumatized by it have been authorized to leave.

"We are reducing drastically at the moment...We might have 30 to 50 percent left by the end of this week...probably 50 percent coming out," Christine McNab, the U.N. resident coordinator in Jordan, told reporters in Amman.

Earlier, a U.N. chartered plane arrived at the Amman's Marka airport from Baghdad evacuating another 40 international staff, witnesses said. More planes are expected in the next few days.

A Jordan military C130 transport plane arrived at the airport from Baghdad carrying 18 wounded U.N. staff for treatment in local hospitals, witnesses said.

DRIVE FOR MORE STATES TO SEND TROOPS

The United States and Britain have made a renewed push for more help in Iraq in the wake of the U.N. bombing, hoping countries may have become more willing to commit troops as a sign of international solidarity.

But states which opposed the war such as France, Germany and Russia say they will not send soldiers unless the U.S. and Britain cede political control of Iraq to the United Nations.

The death of the serviceman in Hilla -- whose name and unit were not released by officials -- brings to 64 the number of U.S. military personnel killed by hostile action since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

The military also said another U.S. soldier was killed and six were wounded in a fire at a small arms range in Baghdad on Thursday. There was no information on the cause of the blaze.

Six U.S. soldiers were wounded on Friday morning when their vehicle ran over a homemade land mine near Baiji, north of Baghdad, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division said. "One of them is still in a critical condition," Major Josslyn Aberle said.

(Includes material from news agency pool. Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Tikrit and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman.)

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