U.S. Plans Partial Panama Pullback of Troops by Feb. 1 : Occupation: American forces would leave the capital first but remain in outlying areas. Officials cite problems posed by remaining Noriega loyalists there.

The United States plans to withdraw its troops from the streets of the Panamanian capital by Feb. 1, but it may be months before military occupation forces are able to return the rest of the country to Panamanian control, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The lag in the outlying areas is anticipated because neither the United States nor the new government of Panama is yet confident that the Panamanian forces given power in those regions in the wake of the invasion will in fact prove loyal to the new regime.

Already in the provincial capital of Las Tablas, the military commander chosen by the United States to head the new Panamanian security force there has been arrested after he publicly threatened reprisals against townspeople celebrating the overthrow of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega.

A potent opposition force of Noriega loyalists is “still there,” an official said. “They can be turned back on again. And that’s typical of the problems in the provinces.”

The disclosure of the tentative timetable for an ultimate American withdrawal found the U.S. bid to win custody of Noriega, the principal target of its military assault, apparently no closer to fruition during a fourth day of stalemated negotiations.

With Noriega still sheltered in the urban mansion that houses the Vatican’s diplomatic emissary here, the archbishop of Panama said Thursday that the Roman Catholic Church is struggling to balance the “principle of asylum with a sense of justice.” The archbishop, Marcos G. McGrath, warned that the negotiations between the church and the United States could be “open-ended.”

U.S. officials here refused Thursday even to discuss the top-level talks or to answer questions about developments inside the Vatican Embassy , which has been sealed off by U.S. troops since the fleeing Noriega took refuge there Sunday night. But army officers outside the building could be seen tapping into the diplomatic mission’s telephone lines in what one soldier said was an effort to ensure that the wealthy former dictator could not place calls to shift his fortune to a more permanent sanctuary.

And in a further highly unorthodox attempt to pressure diplomats who are sheltering Noriega and his associates, U.S. forces guarding the papal mission briefly detained the Cuban ambassador, whose residence is believed to harbor as many as 65 Panamanians--including Noriega’s wife--who are hiding from authorities.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman sought to play down the incident, which outraged the diplomatic community here, contending that the American troops had merely been enforcing orders that require anyone seeking to enter or leave a diplomatic mission to display proper credentials. Because an aide traveling with the ambassador carried no such documents, the spokesman said, both men were driven in a U.S. military vehicle back to the Cuban residence so that the aide’s identity could be verified.

An indication of the scope of the American roundup here came as an official revealed that among hundreds of suspects taken into custody by American troops was Mike Harari, an Israeli national and former member of the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, who earned a reputation for brutality as Noriega’s top security adviser.

Details of his arrest were sparse, but U.S. officials said Harari had ranked high on a list of more than 200 individuals most eagerly sought by U.S. and Panamanian authorities. While many are not charged by the United States with any crime, “at this point we’re willing to arrest most anybody (the Panamanians) identify,” one U.S. official said.

Otherwise, Thursday generally marked another step in a rapid return to normality for this capital, as banks opened for the first time since the invasion and the Panama Canal returned to 24-hour service.

Thirty-five ships were scheduled to navigate the narrow passage Thursday, about twice the usual number, while 150 more were backed up at anchorages on either side of the isthmus.

The expression of confidence from the U.S. Embassy that U.S. forces could be off the streets of Panama City by Feb. 1 reflects the priority that the United States has given to organizing a new Panamanian constabulary capable of maintaining order in the capital.

So far those forces have been all but invisible, with the U.S. military assuming police duties precinct by precinct while it seeks to ensure that the Panamanian force it is trying to build can demonstrate its loyalty and win the confidence of the new government of President Guillermo Endara.

But a senior embassy official said Thursday that he expects that the new police force can be in place by Feb. 1 and “we can be out of here.”

By contrast, U.S. forces in the outlying provinces here have largely delegated law-and-order responsibilities to former Noriega loyalists who surrendered in place during and after the invasion. The new commanders appointed by the United States to head those units most often were simply transferred from a neighboring region, a military source acknowledged.

“It’s very nice, but basically you’ve got the same men, the same force and the same structure,” the senior U.S. Embassy official said. “That’s a problem down the line.”

For that reason, he said, the United States would likely seek to arrange the transfer of large numbers of soldiers to road construction and other unarmed duties before it agreed to cede control of the provinces back to Panamanian authorities.

One official estimated that such a massive undertaking could take until at least mid-March, and he added that it could take far longer if the hundreds of deposed Panama Defense Forces combat troops who are believed still to be on the run establish any kind of guerrilla resistance movement.

Officials have made clear that it would be the United States rather than the Panamanians who would seek to quell such an insurgency, even if it took a number of months to put down.

One reason that American officials here remain nervous about that prospect is the extraordinarily large number of weapons they have found stashed in remote hiding places in Panama’s mountains and jungles. More than 75,000 weapons have already been seized nationwide, and the U.S. Embassy expects the total to rise to at least 100,000--a monumental sum in a nation whose combined army and police force numbered just 16,000.

The citizens themselves have turned in more than 3,000 of the weapons in return for a U.S. payment of $150 per gun, and one man even returned an armored personnel carrier, reaping a $5,000 reward.