Former Iraqi army general Mohammed Latif escorted about three dozen soldiers into positions next to marines at the railway station, which was rocked by heavy fighting last week.

The move comes ahead of a possible US withdrawal from the city's northern front, which includes the Jolan district, considered the den of local insurgents.

The marines have already pulled out of the city's southern industrial zone, where they had their biggest toe-hold in Fallujah after launching an all-out invasion on April 5 following the brutal murder of four US contractors days earlier.

Latif, dressed in a gray suit, dismissed concerns about his role in the new security force, known as the Fallujah Brigade, and his past as a top officer in jailed dictator Saddam Hussein's army.

"I am the Fallujah commander," Latif said, answering his detractors in Washington who have questioned his track record and that of General Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who is tapped to lead the brigade's first battalion.

"General Saleh is on my staff," Latif said.

Latif said he doubted any foreign fighters were left in the city, although the marines have demanded the Fallujah Brigade hand over foreigners they blame for leading the fight against them last month that left hundreds of Iraqis dead.

Tracking down the foreigners was one of the main tasks given to the Fallujah Brigade when its formation was announced last week in a bid to avoid a resumption of US offensive operations, which were unilaterally suspended in mid-April after the fiercest fighting of the year-long US-led occupation.

"There are no foreign fighters in Fallujah" Latif said. "Maybe there were some a month ago. Now there are none."

Fallujah Brigade members were also believed to be positioned in the city centre.

"It is very critical at this critical time to put Iraqi soldiers at the front and your soldiers behind," Latif told marine Captain Jeff Stevenson, the senior US officer at the station.

The marine welcomed the arrival of the Iraqis. "It is a great thing that Americans and Iraqis are working side by side," Stevenson said. "It is a great day for Iraq."

For his part, Saleh, in his general's uniform, praised the teamwork with the Americans in restoring calm on the ground.

"The cooperation with the Americans is good, especially with the commanders on the ground," Saleh said in an interview with Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

Interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Monday criticised the plan to hand over any security responsibilities in the city to Saleh, a former member of Saddam's elite Republican Guard.

He said Saleh was "involved in the suppression of the 1991 uprising," referring to the Republican Guard's brutal suppression of a Shiite revolt against Saddam at the tail end of the 1991 Gulf War.

However, Zebari said he had no issue with Latif, who never served in the elite guard and was said to have spent seven years in jail under Saddam.

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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