PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - One police officer was shot dead as United Nations peacekeepers and Haitian riot police moved into a holdout of militants loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide before dawn Sunday.

The resistance ended as scores of troops, including about 100 police officers from Canada, Benin, France and Spain, advanced behind 10 Brazilian armoured cars with mounted submachine-guns.

The death of the police officer was confirmed by Brazilian Col. Luiz-Felipe Carbonell. Brazilian troops are overseeing the peacekeeping mission.

The chant of hymns wafted from church services and a UN helicopter roared overhead as the operation got underway in Bel Air, a warren of concrete homes on a hill overlooking the National Palace.

It came two days after the interim government said it would root out gangs that it blames for two weeks of violence that killed at least 56 people. Aristide supporters say the police started the violence by shooting and killing two protesters at a Sept. 30 march to demand the return of Aristide, who fled a rebellion Feb. 29.

Aristide was accused of corruption, profiting from cocaine smuggling and using police to suppress his opponents. He left Haiti on a U.S.-chartered plane as ex-soldiers leading a bloody rebellion neared Port-au-Prince.

Now in South Africa, Aristide has accused the United States of orchestrating his ouster and insists he remains Haiti's democratically elected leader. The United States denies his charges and says he signed his resignation before he boarded the plane.

On Friday, interim President Boniface Alexandre called the gangs "terrorists" and warned: "They must be treated as what they are." He urged people to help police "expel these bandits."

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue on Saturday castigated the UN, saying it had not sent enough troops to prevent the violence. There are 3,200 peacekeepers in Haiti, instead of the promised 8,700 to police a country of eight million.

Sunday's Operation Clean Sweep Bel Air began at 5 a.m. and continued into the afternoon.

Canadian Daniel Moskaluk, a spokesman for an international police force helping and training Haiti's demoralized police department said Jordanian and Haitian riot police would remain in the neighbourhood, and that his group would help ordinary Haitian police establish a permanent station in Bel Air, which has become a flashpoint for unrest.

Peacekeepers used a sledgehammer to knock down the second-storey wall of a corner building that Gen. Americo Salvador said was used by snipers. "They were using it to attack people and us," said Salvador, commander of the Brazilian brigade.