"It was amazing. We were treated like celebrities," Shant, the drummer of the band, said after Wednesday's launch in Lebanon of their compact disc "Jamila" or Beautiful.

"I am very blessed because this is the result of three years of waiting and working hard, with lots of ups and downs," he told AFP in a telephone interview.

The single carries four versions of "Jamila," which hit the airwaves a fortnight ago, as well as their first ever song in English entitled "While We Can" which was released earlier this year.

"With 'While We Can' we wanted to tell the Iraqi people and the world that we, as youths, can make a difference," said Art, the keyboard player who along with Shant created the band in Baghdad in 1999.

"We have lived through a lot of bad situations in Iraq. Destiny was not on our side," said Art, whose family, like those of his band mates still live in violence-plagued Iraq.

He voiced hope that the young fans who feted them at Wednesday's launch in a Beirut music and book shop will be inspired by their success and "not lose hope" despite the crises gripping the Middle East.

"Young people should change things by themselves, they should not wait for circumstances to be suitable," Art said.

Art and Shant dreamed up the band in Baghdad, before the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003, when they teamed up to write Western-style pop music.

They were soon joined by vocalists Nadeem and Akhlad as well as guitarist Hassan.

According to their Web site, the first song they ever wrote was played "only once" on a radio station run by Saddam's eldest son Uday, a man known for his brutality who was killed along with his brother Qusay after the invasion.

The Iraqi rockers, who are in their mid- to late-20s, moved to Britain after the invasion to fine-tune their music knowledge.

The band first landed in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 to record video clips just as Israel and Shiite militant guerrillas from Hezbollah were locked in a deadly war that lasted 34 days.

But the war failed to dent their spirit.

"We have seen worse than that in Iraq," said Shant, adding that he was saddened by the chronic political and confessional tensions gripping Lebanon.

"I urge the Lebanese to look at what happened in Iraq and learn from those lessons. Please be careful," he said.

In fact the band, which is made up of Christian and Muslim Iraqis, hope they can be an example of harmony for their compatriots inside Iraq, where sectarian strife raged after the fall of Saddam.

They said they also want to spread a "message of peace" to the Western and Arab worlds.

"Through our songs, we want to show to the Western world that the Iraqi people are not terrorists. The Iraqis are people who are educated who can sing exactly like it is done in the West," said Shant.

"We want to tell the world that our songs carry a message of peace and are meant to say that the Iraqis can sing, laugh, have a human sense, and can do crazy things like everyone else."

"We are from different ethnic backgrounds and religions but we are first Iraqis, brothers and friends, and this is our message to the Iraqi people," said Shant.

UTN1 is expected to release a 12-track album of songs in English in mid-2008, which they have recorded in Lebanon and hope to sell in Europe and the United States.

On Wednesday night they were feted by journalists and fans who gathered in a mega music and book shop, where UTN1 performed for around 100 people.

"It was great. The fans were shouting. It was the first time we see the result of our efforts live," said Art.

"We will not allow any circumstance to stop us from developing our dreams."

© 2007 Agence France-Presse