Guerrillas and residents in Fallujah have only days to turn in heavy weapons, the top Marine general in Iraq said yesterday, warning that fighting could resume and that a Marine push to take the city will likely be costly for both sides.

　　The few arms that have been surrendered so far were "junk," Marines commanders said - including rocket-propelled grenade rounds marked "inert," 100 rusted mortar shells, dud rockets and unusable guns.

　　Guerrillas' compliance with a call to hand over their heavy weapons is a crucial part of a deal reached over the weekend. Marines have warned that if the agreement falls through, they could resume their assault on the city to uproot insurgents.

　　Asked how long Marines would wait to see if compliance approves, Lieutenant General James Conway, the top Marine commander in Iraq, said it was a matter of "days, not weeks."

　　Hundreds of foreign fighters are believed to be inside of the city and have been strengthening their positions during the ease in fighting over the past week, Conway said. The foreign fighters are expected to fight to the death, he said.

　　Meanwhile, a foreigner was killed and his Iraqi translator wounded by gunmen who opened fire on their armored vehicle in Baghdad yesterday. The foreigner's nationality was not immediately known. The shooting took place in the northern neighborhood of Azimiyah, where gunmen have been active in past weeks.

　　In southern Iraq, a spokesman for British forces responsible for the area lowered the reported death toll to 50 from a series of near simultaneous suicide bombings that targeted Iraqi police stations on Wednesday.

　　The spokesman, Captain Hisham Halawi, said a review of hospital records showed 50 dead, 20 of them children.

　　"We can't discount al-Qaida, we can't discount former regime loyalists. It is too early to start speculating," Halawi said in Kuwait City yesterday.

　　Suicide attackers detonated five car bombs - all but one of them simultaneously - targeting police buildings in Basra, Iraq's second largest city on Wednesday, striking rush-hour crowds just as buses carrying kindergartners and school girls were passing by.

　　Meanwhile, at a meeting in Malaysia, Islamic countries urged the United Nations yesterday to return to Iraq and take "a central role" in restoring peace and security, citing grave concerns about heavy civilian casualties and alleged abuses by the US-led occupying forces.

　　(The Associated Press)