"The trial worked in Thawra-Sadr City and there are 4.5 million dollars worth of arms so far (collected) and calls to extend the period, but of course it will not be extended," he told reporters during a visit to the northern city of Mosul.

"We will begin searching for any remaining arms in the next few days and this will be repeated in all governorates of the country."

Earlier the commander of the Iraqi national guard in Sadr City Colonel Mehdi Zayer put the amount spent in the buyback at three million dollars.

Hundreds of fighters, middlemen, dealers and ordinary citizens lined up on the last day of the buyback Thursday to hand over weapons at a football stadium on the edge of Sadr City, which has been serving as the main drop-off centre for the past week.

US troops and Iraqi forces stood on guard.

The buyback, started on October 11 and extended twice already, came after radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr called on his militiamen in Baghdad to hand over their weapons in return for an amnesty for his fighters and the release of some of his movement's members from US-run prisons in Iraq.

Once the buyback is completed, Iraqi forces backed by US troops are expected to conduct searches and raids to verify the extent of disarmament in Sadr City, which had been the scene of off-and-on clashes between Sadr's militia and US and Iraqi forces over the past six months.

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