As fighting raged on, a two-week weapons amnesty produced derisory results with just over 1,000 arms and explosives turned in at local police stations, US Central Command said.

Coalition forces started the fresh operation, codenamed Desert Scorpion, against guerrillas loyal to ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein overnight.

It's still ongoing," said Sergeant First Class Brian Thomas. "We are targeting anyone who is striking against US soldiers."

"Some of them are (Saddam's former ruling party) Baath members and some of them are against our peace efforts,

"We have detained people but we don't have any numbers right now.

"We have received no reports of US casualties," he said, adding that the operation was concentrated in "several locations mostly in the north and northwest," of the country.

Centcom earlier announced the end of a massive six-day-long US military campaign in north-central Iraq to crush pro-Saddam fighters.

Iraqi sources put the death toll at 113 people, including at least one foreigner, while US army sources said 31 gunmen had been killed.

Asked about Iraqi witness reports that US forces had killed 82 men -- some reportedly summarily executed, at a training camp near the Syrian border on Thursday, Thomas said: "We don't have anything. I can't comment on it."

The campaign, dubbed Operation Peninsula Strike, and launched after a spate of guerrilla attacks on US troops, was aimed to "capture or destroy terrorist elements," Centcom said.

But out of the 400 presumed militants originally nabbed by the coalition troops, only 60 remained in custody Sunday.

Operation Peninsula Strike was the largest assault since President George W. Bush declared on May 1 that major combat was over in Iraq after the ousting of Saddam's regime in a three-week campaign by US-led forces.

Sunday also marked the first day after the end of the coalition's Weapons Turn-In Program during which Iraqis were asked to surrender heavy weapons, explosives and automatic weapons firing ammunition larger than 7.62 millimeters.

"A total of 123 pistols, 76 semi-automatic rifles or shotguns, 435 automatic rifles, 46 machine guns, 162 anti-tank weapons (i.e. rocket-propelled grenade launchers), 11 anti-air weapons, and 381 grenades and other explosive devices" have been turned in at local police stations, a Centcom statement said.

The meager showing, in a country known to be armed to the teeth, will either be destroyed or handed over to the future Iraqi army or police forces.

At a central Baghad police station, commander Omar Zahed said he had only received six anti-tank weapons over the two weeks.

"The operation failed because Iraqis will never hand over their weapons until security is reestablished," he said, echoing the widely-shared sentiment here that coalition troops may have toppled Saddam's bloody dictatorship but brought chaos and mayhem to the country.

And a day after the program ended, US troops had already deployed on Baghdad's main highway to search for weapons in cars, attesting to the limited success of the amnesty.

Cars were randomly stopped and searched at military checkpoints west of the Iraqi capital, near Abu Ghraib, an AFP correspondent reported.

The head of coalition ground forces, Lieutenant General David McKiernan, recently confessed the program would have limited results.

"Weapon turn-in has been light and we somewhat expected that," he said Thursday.

He said the coalition forces would embark on a major campaign to complete the daunting task of disarming Iraq.

The coalition warned that after June 14, individuals caught with unauthorized weapons will be liable to one year in prison and a fine of 1,000 dollars.

Under the new policy, Iraqis will need a temporary weapons card issued by the coalition to carry small arms outside their homes and businesses, and must do so openly.

The only exemptions will be for "coalition forces, police, security and other forces in uniform under the supervision and authority of the coalition," Mckiernan said.

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