The cleric's comments apparently reversed earlier conciliatory statements he made to the government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Members of al-Sadr's movement had also suggested they might transform their militia into a political party.

"We pledge to the Iraqi people and the world to continue resisting oppression and occupation to our last drop of blood," al-Sadr said in a statement distributed Sunday by his office in the Shia holy city of Najaf, where his al-Mahdi militia battled American troops until a cease-fire last month.

"Resistance is a legitimate right and not a crime to be punished," he said.

Previously, Al-Mahdi fighters accepted cease-fires in most Shia areas after suffering huge losses at the hands of the Americans.

However, in his statement Sunday, the young cleric said, "There is no truce with the occupier and those who cooperate with it."

"We announce that the current government is illegitimate and illegal," al-Sadr said. "It's generally following the occupation. We demand complete sovereignty and independence by holding honest elections."

Violence in Iraq continued one week after sovereignty. Three Iraqis were killed and 11 wounded in four separate attacks across the country against Iraqi police and US soldiers, officials said yesterday.

Two relatives of a district head in the troubled city of Baquba were killed by unknown attackers on Sunday evening, a spokesperson for the governorate said.

An Iraqi civilian was killed and three others wounded when their house was hit during a rocket attack on a police station in the southern city of Basra, police said.

Also in southern Iraq, one Iraqi civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb targeting a US convoy exploded near Samawa yesterday, an Iraqi national guard spokesman said.

In the north, five Iraqi civilians were wounded in a roadside bombing in Mosul, 370km north of Baghdad, the US military said.

LAWYERS TO MEET AISHA

Members of Saddam Hussein's Jordan-based defence team were to hold talks in Libya yesterday after a daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi joined the team, the group's head told AFP.

Mohammed Rashdan said he and fellow Jordanian lawyers Hatem Shahin and Ziad Khassawneh were to fly out later the same day to meet Libyan members of Saddam's defence committee, including Aisha Gaddafi.

"We want to discuss with our committee there the latest developments, to exchange views and prepare reports," Rashdan said. "We also expect to meet Doctor Aisha because she is now a member of the committee."

On Saturday, Rashdan told AFP that Gaddafi's daughter, a lawyer, had joined the defence team, which initially comprised 20 members, including European and US lawyers appointed by Saddam's wife and three daughters.

Rashdan also said the defence team was waiting for a green light from the Iraqi Bar Association to allow them to travel to Iraq and meet Saddam ahead of appointing an Iraqi lawyer to defend him.

The Jordan-based legal counsel sent formal requests on Saturday to the bar association and a US colonel seeking authorisation to travel to Iraq.

The same day, Rashdan received a phone call from the head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST), charged with putting Saddam on trial, who insisted that according to Iraqi law, the ousted president's in-court defence must be Iraqi.

"He said he will be sending us a copy of this law. We are still waiting," said Rashdan. "We want to meet our client before we take any decision" to appoint an Iraqi lawyer.