BAGHDAD (AFP) - Former president Saddam Hussein is to be handed over to Iraqi custody today, officials said, as nine people were killed in continuing violence in Iraq on its first day as a sovereign state since the US-led invasion.

US President George W Bush yesterday hailed NATO's agreement to train the new Iraqi army, while Ankara breathed a sigh of relief following the release of three Turks, kidnapped by an Al-Qaeda-linked group and threatened with death.

Marking the end of the 14-month occupation by US-led forces, Iraq's new government announced that Saddam and 11 top officials from his toppled regime would be transferred to Iraqi legal custody today and arrest warrants read out the following day.

"This government has formally requested the transfer of the most notorious and high-profile detainees to Iraqi legal custody," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told reporters.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, blamed for the 1988 gassing of Kurds in northern Iraq, former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz and ex-vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan were also to be handed over.

But the announcement also revealed the limits of Iraq's vaunted sovereignty as Allawi said the detainees would for now remain under the protection of the US-led multinational force.

As Iraq faced the arduous task of building up its armed forces to achieve military independence, Bush hailed the agreement by NATO leaders meeting in Istanbul to train the new Iraq army as "a crucial success for the Iraqi people".

"Iraq's leaders are eager to assume responsibility for their own security, and that is our wish as well," Bush told a group of university students in Istanbul.

The 26-member alliance formally endorsed the agreement on Monday, just as the interim government took power in Iraq, two days ahead of schedule.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave an interview with an Iraqi television station, saying the US-led coalition forces could only stay in Iraq as long as they were wanted.

"We can only stay in Iraq insofar as you wish us to stay," Blair told the Pentagon-funded Iraqiya TV. "If you don't wish us to stay, we have no right to be there."

Asked to send a message to the people of Iraq, Blair replied: "I would say: have confidence and faith because you will succeed."

But Iraqi hopes for a peaceful new era were dampened as the low-level violence that has poisoned the lives of ordinary Iraqis claimed at least another nine lives.

Three US marines died in a bomb blast in Baghdad, raising to 632 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq, according to a Pentagon tally.

Two Iraqi insurgents were killed in a gunbattle in a Baghdad police station. And one policeman was killed and another injured in an attack on police headquarters south of the capital.

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