Britain is to send an additional 400 troops to Iraq, the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, has announced.
The deployment is for a limited period of time ahead of the elections in Iraq scheduled for later this month.
Earlier today, Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son, also a policeman, were shot dead as they travelled in a car to work south of the capital.
In a separate attack in southwestern Baghdad, two US soldiers were killed and four wounded in a bomb blast on a tank.
Meanwhile Ukraine's outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, has ordered his defence and foreign ministers to draw up a plan to withdraw Kiev's troops from Iraq within six months.
The order comes after a blast killed eight Ukrainian soldiers stationed in central Iraq yesterday.
