Blair, who gambled his political career on the Iraq war, was today expected to visit the southern city of Basra where British troops are stationed.

He told reporters en route to the Gulf he “wanted to thank (the armed forces) for their magnificent performance, and take stock of humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Iraq”.

“There’s a lot of work still to be done to put things right,” he said.

In another move toward giving government back to the people, a new council elected a Kurdish mayor in the volatile northern oil city of Kirkuk.

But the arrest of Palestinian charge d’affaires Najah Rahman was sure to anger Arab opinion, as the United States seeks backing for a road map to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Soldiers handcuffed charge d’affaires Najah Abdul Rahman and four other men outside what ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government recognized as the Palestine Embassy. The troops said the men had illegal weapons, but it was not clear what had prompted them to disarm a Palestinian diplomat in a city awash with arms seven weeks after Saddam’s overthrow.

As a military truck took him away, Abdul Rahman denied he had been carrying a gun. “They searched the embassy...They are targeting the embassy,” he told reporters.

A Palestinian source in Baghdad said later that nine other Palestinians, including the three guards at the mission, had also been detained. He said the US troops put barbed wire around the building and locked the main gate. No immediate comment was available from US or Palestinian officials on Abdul Rahman’s detention.

Many foreign institutions and rich Iraqis have hired armed guards since law and order collapsed after Saddam’s fall. US officials trying to restore security have set a June 14 deadline for Iraqis to surrender automatic and heavy guns.

In northern Iraq, the election of a Kurdish mayor for Kirkuk, which many Iraqi Kurds regard as their capital, drew concern from local Arab and Turkmen leaders worried about Kurdish domination of the city’s interim administration.

Al-Jazeera television said it could not confirm local accounts that a US helicopter had crashed and four Americans were killed at the town of Hit, 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

The Pentagon said it had no information on any missing or crashed US helicopter in Iraq.