Outgoing military governor Colonel Matthew Lopes of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, passed command over the holy Shiite Muslim city to his Bulgarian counterpart, Colonel Petko Marinov.

Some 250 Bulgarian troops will join a multinational task force of US and Polish troops in patrolling the city, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, which has largely avoided the unrest afflicting the capital and other towns since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In a two-hour ceremony watched by a dozen troops from each of the three brigades in the city, as well as a handful of local police, Lopes said the handover was very symbolic.

"Poland and Bulgaria are two countries that have transformed themselves from dictatorships under the communists to democracies," he said during the ceremony held in the city mayor's red-carpeted office.

"Both of these countries bring a lot of hope to Iraq."

The Bulgarians will be under the command of the Polish army, which will take control on September 3 of one of the four administrative regions into which the US-led occupying force has divided Iraq.

The area under command of the Polish-led multinational force, which will number more than 9,000, stretches just south of Baghdad to the British-run zone around the southern port of Basra.

At the handover ceremony in Karbala's heavily barricaded city hall, Lopes was visibly moved by the thanks heaped upon him and his men by Mayor Akram al-Yassri.

"The people of Karbala, for their people and for their religion, have earned their place in heaven," said Lopes, after receiving gifts of Islamic religious items, including a prayer mat depicting the nearby Mosque of Imam Hussein and Imam Abad and a ritual sword.

"I am honoured to have helped Karbala on the road to democracy," Lopes said.

Yassri thanked coalition forces for having begun the "big job" of rebuilding his shattered city.

"The coalition forces, with the help of local people and the city council, gave back vital services to the people of Karbala," he said.

"We will continue to work and cooperate as long as the coalition's aims are humanitarian and their goals are to help the Iraqi people."

Under their control, and that of supporting US Army reservists, the marines claim Karbala was one of the first regions to have a university reopened, a local water system in working order and an established local police force.

Marinov, who has been in the city for two weeks and whose men have been patrolling with their US counterparts over the past month, said he relished picking up from where his predecessors left off.

"This is a very important moment for the Bulgarian contingent and for the people of Karbala," said Marinov, who takes over the role of military governor of the city.

"We will continue to work with the Iraqi people, who we have found are honest and very friendly, as democracy emerges in Iraq."

The commander of Bulgarian troops in Iraq -- which number almost 500 with detachments also based in Babil and Baghdad -- Colonel Panayot Panayotov said his men faced many challenges in Iraq.

"The biggest challenge is making our contribution towards improving security here," Panayotov said after the ceremony.

"We not only have to protect the Iraqi people and our people, but also to make our contribution towards democracy in this country."

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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