SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The governor sent buses with guards to ferry children to school in violence-wracked neighbourhoods yesterday, but he delayed a decision on whether to call up National Guard troops to help respond to a surge in drug-related violence in Puerto Rico.Noting a decline in slayings over the last three days, Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila told a press conference he would wait to see if that trend continues before deciding on whether to deploy troops on crime patrols.

Drug traffickers battling each other for control have been blamed for gunbattles in the housing projects in Rio Piedras, where the opening of two schools following the Christmas break was delayed a week because of the shootings.

Police say the rivalries have contributed to violence elsewhere in the San Juan metropolitan area in the US Caribbean territory.

There were 46 homicides in Puerto Rico during the first 15 days of 2007, almost double the number of killings during the same period last year, according to police.

Although children in the Rio Piedras housing projects live close enough to walk to school, parents requested the bus service. Guards were posted inside the schools and on the buses.

"Parents had told me there was a lot of fear, and they didn't dare to send their children out to walk alone," Acevedo Vila said during a visit to the neighbourhood yesterday morning.

The charred remains of two crime victims were found Monday night in a car set ablaze along a highway in Gurabo, 20 miles south of San Juan, the capital. The unidentified bodies were discovered by firefighters who put out the blaze. Police said they were victims of a double homicide.

Acevedo Vila, who announced last week that he might dispatch the National Guard, did not say when he would make a decision. Any deployment would be "temporary and limited," he said.

"They would not be there to intervene or to make arrests, but to do preventive patrols," he said at the press conference.

Previous administrations have used National Guard troops to quell violence. Gov. Sila Calderon deployed 500 troops in 2004 following a series of drug-related killings.

Puerto Rico, which has 3.9 million residents, averaged more than two homicides a day last year. The 739 slayings marked a slight decrease from 2005. In most cases, police say the murders were linked to the trade in drugs including marijuana, heroin and cocaine.