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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers killed as many as 10 gunmen in a joint crackdown on lawlessness in Port-au-Prince's volatile Cite Soleil slum on Friday, a senior U.N. peacekeeper said.

The operation, involving 160 Jordanian peacekeepers and several dozen Haitian police, came a day after bandits shot dead a U.N. soldier from the Philippines, the third peacekeeper to die in action in Haiti since the mission was launched in June 2004.

"We know that there are bandits who have been killed. They are between five and 10," said Commander Carlos Chagas, an assistant to General Augusto Heleno, the U.N. force commander.

"The operation will continue," Chagas said.

U.N. officials said the operation was aimed at restoring order in Cite Soleil, Haiti's most dangerous and most impoverished slum, and also at finding Dread Wilmer, the leader of Cite Soleil's main gang and loyal to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Haiti has been mired in violence since Aristide fled the country in February of last year in the face of an armed rebellion. Aristide is now living in exile in South Africa.

The operation also coincided with the first visit to Haiti by ambassadors from the 15-nation U.N. Security Council. The council members have been pressing the interim government installed after Aristide's departure to prepare for planned elections in November and to restore order.

After talks with the council on Thursday, Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said during a visit to police headquarters in the Haitian capital on Friday that his government had worked out a deal with the international community, including the United States, to obtain police weapons and equipment.

The United States has had an arms embargo on Haiti since the early 1990s, and diplomats said the change in policy was a sign of Washington's recognition that the government and the police needed more help to cope with lawless armed groups.

The U.S. State Department's latest annual report on human rights expressed concern about allegations of summary executions and other abuses by Haiti's police. Rights groups say that more than 650 people have been gunned down in Haiti since September.

Human Rights Watch, in a report issued in Port-au-Prince, called on the Security Council to press the Haitian authorities to investigate all acts of violence and actively seek help from U.N. police in criminal investigations when needed.

"The authorities' failure to investigate and punish daily acts of violence creates a climate of impunity in which abuses flourish and people feel completely defenseless," the group said.

The Security Council is pushing hard for the interim government to stick to its timetable for elections so that a new government can take power in February 2006.

But council diplomats said after meeting with representatives of Haitian political parties that there were great differences among the parties, raising concerns that bringing the country together would be difficult in the short time before the elections.

"It was a little discouraging," said U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson.

As a symbol of national reconciliation, the council is eager to have Aristide's Lavalas Family party participate in the election campaign, provided it renounces violence.

But, with Aristide in exile in South Africa, the party has become badly splintered, and four different Lavalas officials attended the meeting.

"We were told so many came because they could not agree among themselves," Patterson told Reuters.

Yvon Feuille, one of the Lavalas leaders in attendance, said his party was being unjustly blamed for the country's instability.

"Violence existed before Aristide's departure," he said. "I cannot renounce something I have not done. I am against violence and I condemn it."