The two primary militias in Iraq are the military wings of the country's strongest Shi'ite political groups on which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is heavily dependent. He has repeatedly rejected US demands that he disband the heavily armed groups, especially the Mahdi Army of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"I think the type of violence is different in the past few months," Gianni Magazzeni, the UNAMI chief in Baghdad, told a news conference. "There was a great increase in sectarian violence in activities by terrorists and insurgents, but also by militias and criminal gangs."

He noted that religious clashes have been common since Sunni Arab insurgents bombed a major Shi'ite shrine on Feb. 22 in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

UNAMI's Human Rights Office continued to receive reports that Iraqi police and security forces have either been infiltrated by or act in collusion with militias, the report said.

It said that while sectarian violence is the main cause of the civilian killings, Iraqis also continue to be the victims of terrorist acts, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings, while some have been caught in the cross fire between rival gangs.

Access to the UN news conference was blocked for many because the main entrance to the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad was closed as US forces checked for a bomb in the area, a US military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

On Wednesday, assassins killed a bodyguard of Iraq's parliament speaker one day after a bomb exploded in the hot-tempered politician's motorcade as it drove into a parking lot inside the Green Zone.

The bomb attack on the motorcade of Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a hard-line Sunni Arab nationalist reviled by many Shi'ites, was a major security breach in the heavily guarded compound that houses the US and British embassies and the Iraqi government. It was also the fourth assassination attempt against a high-ranking Iraqi government official in recent days.

Last summer, Shi'ite and Kurdish parties organized an unsuccessful bid to oust al-Mashhadani as parliament speaker after he called the US occupation of Iraq "the work of butchers."

On Nov. 1, al-Mashhadani had to be physically restrained from attacking a Sunni lawmaker. The speaker had been holding a nationally televised news conference when he lashed out at the legislator, Abdel-Karim al-Samarie, for alleged corruption and failure to attend sessions. He called him a "dog" - a deep insult in Iraq and other Arab societies.

Violence also continued against Iraq's journalists Wednesday, when gunmen sprayed Raad Jaafar Hamadi with bullets as he drove his car in the capital's Washash neighborhood, said police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq. Hamadi worked for the state-run al-Sabah newspaper.

At least 92 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the US-led war began, according to an AP count, based on statistics kept by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Thirty-six other media employees, including drivers, interpreters and guards, have been killed - all of them Iraqi except for one Lebanese.

The US military reported the deaths of two US soldiers on Tuesday. One was killed by a roadside bomb and the other died from non-combat causes. So far this month, 49 American service members have been killed or died.

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