Violence keeps UN's Iraq expansion on hold: Annan

Efforts to reinforce the world body's presence in satellite offices in Basra in the south and Erbil in the north appear to have failed because no country will provide the aircraft needed to ferry staff safely in and out of those cities, Annan said.

Despite December parliamentary elections which took place in relative calm, "the organisation's presence and its ability to operate effectively in Iraq remain severely constrained by the security environment," Annan said in his latest quarterly report to the Security Council on UN operations in Iraq.

The return to Iraqi self-rule and stepped-up efforts by Iraqi and US-led forces to maintain security "have been accompanied by the development of an increasingly complex armed opposition capable of carrying out a consistently high level of violent activity across the country," he said.

In latest violence yesterday at least 23 bodies many of them hanged were found dumped in parts of Baghdad, while a string of explosions killed at least four people in the Iraqi capital, police said.