The new ban, which has yet to be approved by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not come into effect until after an amnesty period to hand in weapons, expected to last two weeks, he said.

"The policy will be that you must come to one of the designated areas, which will probably be police stations, and apply for a weapons permit," said McKiernan, the commander of coalition land forces in Iraq.

"The issuance of the weapons permits would be done jointly by Iraqi police and coalition forces."

He added that celebratory fire would also be outlawed but that Kurdish militiamen in the formerly rebel-held areas of northern Iraq would be allowed to retain heavier weapons.

The general said it had become a "policy imperative to reduce the number of weapons in Iraq" in the face of the flood of arms of all types which had swamped the country after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's army, militias and intelligence services.

He stressed that the coalition recognised that ordinary people had a legitimate need for self-defence in their homes and businesses amid the lawlessness that has terrorised the capital since Saddam's fall.

It had no intention of imposing a total weapons ban which would in any case be "unenforceable, impractical at the moment".

"There will be a limit on the calibre and type of weapon that can be kept in homes and businesses," he said.

"Anyone walking in a public place will not be able to bear any concealed weapons and only those with weapons permits will be able to carry a weapon in the open."

McKiernan added there would also be "limitations on personal security guards for political figures," many of whom, like nearly all wealthy people here, have recruited large numbers of bodyguards to protect them from the armed thugs running amok in the capital.

McKiernan said the vetting process for arms permits would be based on intelligence and other data gathered by the coalition.

Penalties for violations of the new weapons rules would only be decided after the head of the US-led occupation administration, Paul Bremer, had completed work on the necessary legal framework.

"It is my hope to begin the amnesty period in the next two weeks," he said, although "not until the policy is approved."

The US general rejected suggestions that the exemptions being proposed for the militiamen of the two main Kurdish factions who have controlled much of northern Iraq since the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war were discriminatory and likely to fan ethnic and communal tensions.

"The peshmerga are a different thing, the peshmerga fought with coalition forces," he said, stressing that the exemptions would not apply to the contested cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, which have seen unrest between Kurds, and Arabs and Turkmens.

The US general acknowledged that celebratory gunfire was "part of the culture" in Iraq -- the lifting of UN sanctions late Thursday was greeted with a hail of Kalashnikov fire, tracer bullets and flares in the countryside south of the capital.

But he said outlawing it would be a first step to bringing it under control.

The proposed new weapons policy is the latest in a string of measures introduced by the new American administration chief since he took up his post early last week to address the security crisis in the capital which is the principal complaint of ordinary Iraqis.

A total of 1,500 US military police have been deployed in Baghdad with more due to arrive next week. Two courts and 19 police stations have been reopened, 10 former prisons are being renovated and night raids by a special anti-crime task force were launched earlier this week.

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