"I've heard rumors and stuff about them playing ball for the other team," said Lance Corporal Stephen Bennett, one of a few dozen marines entrenched at the Fallujah train station.

His gun is pointed at the Jolan neighborhood, which until last week was the scene of heavy battles and which now is patrolled by members of the US-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.)

ICDC troops and the newly formed Fallujah Brigade have been given responsibility for security in Fallujah in a deal that ended weeks of fighting and let the marines lift an almost month-long siege of the Sunni Muslim city.

The US-led coalition said Friday their numbers continued to rise, with 1,750 men from the Fallujah Brigade reporting for work the previous day, as well as some 1,100 ICDC and 750 police.

Officers hail the deal as a step in the right direction, but some of the men eye the lightly armed Iraqis with mistrust.

"We've heard some intel about them doing their job in the daytime and hanging out with the enemy at night," said Bennett.

Navy Corpsman Juan Hernandez, who is deployed with the marines in Fallujah, was more guarded in his assessment of the ICDC.

"They're OK, I guess ... It's not my job to trust them."

A few hundred meters (yards) away, a group of ICDC soldiers sat in the shade by a row of houses whose bullet-riddled facades bear witness to the ferocity of last month's fighting.

"That's all they seem to be doing, just chilling," said Private Jeremiah Layman.

Coalition officials admit the Iraqi force still has its shortcomings, but they express confidence its men will shape up as they continue working alongside US troops.

"Every single day, our security cooperation with the ICDC improves," said Lieutenant Colonel Gregg Olson.

"We are going from us supporting them to them supporting themselves with our assistance," said Olson who commands the 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment.

The coalition forces say their Iraqi allies will eventually be the ones replacing them when they leave the country.

"These guys have not given us any reason to doubt them," said Lieutenant David Myers.

Layman, on the other hand, says "they haven't given us any reason to trust them yet."

Even commanding officers have admitted that the ICDC's performance during the battle for Fallujah was dismal.

Abandoned boots and uniforms along the railway tracks bear witness to the Iraqi troops' hasty flight at the height of the battle.

ICDC members readily admit they left Fallujah during the fighting.

"I took my family outside the city during the fighting," said ICDC Private Mohammed Turki, 24.

Major Ahmed Hammadi admits many of his men had left town, but said things were now different as the troops were better armed -- though his men's ageing AK-47 assault rifles lack the firepower of the insurgents' big guns.

Hammadi's men are based in the main building of the train station, but they have little contact with the marines deployed along the tracks, a few meters away.

A few days ago, ICDC Lieutenant Colonel Jubair Mahlaf Hussein thanked Olson for the supplies the marines had brought his men.

If the food and water keeps coming, "we can stay here," he told his American counterpart through an interpreter, adding: "and hopefully the gap between us will close.

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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