"I have ordered my fighters to adhere to the ceasefire," a guerrilla commander in al-Jolan district of Fallujah told Al-Jazeera television.

   "We will stop operations as long as the other side does as well. But I warn everybody: If the enemy breaks the ceasefire we will respond. "

...

   No Iraqi Arab politician, even those wholly dependent on the US, dare stand up in public and support the actions of the US marines in Fallujah.

   Dr Pachachi, a softly spoken 80-year-old former Iraqi foreign minister underlined the degree to which moderate Iraqis have been alienated, saying: "The whole thing smacks of an act of vengeance. It is collective punishment. Too much force was used."

   The United States is demanding that those responsible for killing four American civilians whose death and mutilation precipitated the siege be brought to justice. Dr Pachachi said: "I don't believe the people responsible for the murders are still there." He said the ceasefire envisaged a phased withdrawal by the United States marines from the centre of Fallujah.

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   The Governing Council is trying to restore its battered credibility in the eyes of Iraqis, many of whom see it as an American puppet, by negotiating a solution to the crisis over Fallujah. But the long term damage to the American position in Iraq will be impossible to repair. It is difficult to meet an Iraqi who approves of US tactics. A battalion of the newly raised US-trained Iraqi army reportedly refused to go to Fallujah last week saying it would not fight fellow Iraqis.

   Anger over Fallujah has reignited a sense of outraged Iraqi patriotism among Shia as well as Sunni Arabs. Among the first trucks carrying food to Fallujah yesterday were 15 people from the vast but impoverished Shia district of Sadr city. Anti-American slogans have been inscribed on walls in Baghdad.

   The US army's trigger-happy use of its massive fire power, regardless of how many civilians are killed, infuriates Iraqis. For instance last Friday night an official of the Iraqi National Congress, which is part of the Governing Council, had just cleared an American checkpoint in the district of Adhamiyah in Baghdad when a sniper opened up on the US troops. They fired back in all directions killing his driver, wounding his bodyguard and hitting him with four bullets. He says seven other civilians were killed in the incident. The US army does not give figures for Iraqi civilian casualties and does not appear to collect them.

Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged that a battalion of the Iraqi army refused to fight in Fallujah - a sign of Iraqi discontent with the siege.

Asked about the battalion's refusal on NBC's "Meet The Press," Sanchez said, "This one specific instance did in fact uncover some significant challenges in some of the Iraqi security force structures ... We know that it's going to take us a while to stand up reliable forces that can accept responsibility."

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The goal of the separate talks in Fallujah and the south - all conducted by Iraqis, with no Americans participating - was unclear. U.S. commanders demand that control of Iraqi police and U.S.-led coalition forces in the cities be restored and that insurgents in Fallujah lay down their arms and hand over Iraqis who killed and mutilated four American civilians on March 31.

Iraqi Governing Council members, who have harshly criticized the U.S. offensive, are seeking a way to extend the truce and resolve the violence.

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In Fallujah, hardly a shot was heard Monday morning, more than 36 hours after insurgents in the city said they were calling a cease-fire. The Marines have halted offensive operations since Friday.

The group described U.S. warplanes screaming overhead and helicopters firing at targets in the city, and long nights of hiding under staircases, holding their children.

"Many of the bodies were buried in the sports stadium and others were buried in the gardens of homes. There is nothing else people could do. It was too dangerous for people to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones," said Rabee.

Talks resumed in Falluja Monday despite overnight clashes that broke an informal truce in the town.

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"When the Americans arrived, there were only about 50 guerrillas. By the end of the week there were a few thousand. They are just making the situation worse," said Nada Rabee.

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Rabee and three others in the group said they had seen U.S. snipers in mosque minarets. The U.S. military says it respects the sanctity of mosques and accuses guerrillas of using them and other civilian areas to fire on American troops.

In Fallujah, Sunni insurgents and Marines largely held to a truce for a second day while Iraqi Governing Council members negotiated with city officials to find a way to halt the violence.

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Aysar al-Baghdadi, an assistant to Governing Council member Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said that in the Fallujah talks, the United States demands the surrender of the killers of four American contractors on March 31, the handover of foreign militants and an end to attacks on U.S. troops in and around the city.

Al-Rubaie on Monday called on "Fallujah's good people ... to hand over these criminals and finish the bloodshed."

As we approached Falluja we started running into mujahedeen checkpoints. Seeing our supplies and hearing that we were headed for Falluja, the guerrillas let us pass.

Entering the city we saw a huge cloud from a US bomb. To our horror we realized there was no cease-fire. Falluja itself was virtually empty, aside from groups of mujahedeen fighters positioned on every other street corner, their faces covered by kaffiyehs. Many were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles; some had rocket propelled grenade launchers. In all, I saw hundreds of Iraqi fighters.

...

The streets were empty except for a rare ambulance racing to pick up wounded, or the odd family car, usually laden with wounded. We rolled toward one small clinic behind mujahedeen lines, where we delivered our medical supplies from INTERSOS, an Italian NGO.

The clinic building was small, dirty and packed with wounded Iraqis. The Americans have bombed one hospital, and, numerous sources told us, were sniping at people who attempted to enter and exit the other major medical facility. So there were effectively only two small clinics that were safe to care for the hundreds of wounded. (Along with the one we visited, there is one set up in a mechanic's garage.)

As we unloaded our supplies, in came a stream of wounded women and children. Civilian cars sped up to the clinic and over the curb out front, their drivers desperate to unload their wailing family members.

One woman, shot in the gut, was making rasping, gurgling noises as the doctors worked frantically to extract a bullet and patch the wound. All around were the sounds of muffled moaning. The clinic was running low on crucial supplies. The woman's small son had a bullet wound in the neck; his eyes glazed, he vomited continually as other doctors raced to save his life. The desperate work in the clinic continued, off and on, into the night as more victims arrived. From outside came the sound of occasional mortar explosions and sporadic bursts of gunfire.

...

As it grew dark, we made our way to the home of a local man who offered us shelter. Above us we heard the buzzing sound of slow-moving unmanned aerial surveillance drones circling the sky. Then a plane above us began dropping flares. We ran for the cover of a nearby wall, afraid the plane was dropping cluster bombs. There had been reports of this, and two of the most recent victims who arrived at the clinic were said to have been hit by cluster bombs, which badly burned them.

...

One of my friends who'd done another ambulance run to collect two bodies said that a Marine she encountered had told them to leave, because the military was about to use air support to begin "clearing the city."

But in Fallujah's clinics there's little evidence of a cease fire: "They said there was a cease-fire," screams clinic director Mekki al-Azar. "They said 12 o'clock so people went out, Everyone who went out was shot and this place was full. Half of them were dead."

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Every day more Iraqi's take up arms against the occupation disgusted at mounting civilian casualties in Fallujah and the South of Iraq where the US military is fighting the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.

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Now, for the first time, Ibrahim Hassen says he's going to pick up a gun and fight the Americans.

"When I see my neighbors, the house collapsed on his head. In all the streets where I live all the houses were destroyed."

"I will take revenge on the United States," he promises. "Until the last breath that I have."

As we neared Falluja, there were groups of children on the sides of the road handing out water and bread to people coming into Falluja. They began literally throwing stacks of flat bread into the bus. The fellowship and community spirit was unbelievable. Everyone was yelling for us, cheering us on, groups speckled along the road.

As we neared Falluja a huge mushroom caused by a large U.S. bomb rose from the city. So much for the cease-fire.

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Ambulances are being shot by the Americans. And now they are preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of the city.

All of which is occurring under the guise of catching the people who killed the four Blackwater Security personnel and hung two of their bodies from a bridge.

Fighting erupted in Fallujah overnight in the first major breach of an informal truce in the town where more than 600 Iraqis were reported killed in a week of battles between United States Marines and Sunni Muslim rebels.

Residents heard blasts and gunfire from one area of Fallujah for three hours before dawn as US helicopters flew overhead. Iraqi fighters blamed the Americans for breaking the ceasefire.

They said they remained ready to meet Iraqi mediators on Monday morning to try to shore up the truce, which gave the battered town some respite during the weekend.

Earlier, mosques in the city had broadcast the command: "Leave now or prepare to be shot." Tens of thousands responded.

In the relative safety of Baghdad yesterday, they described how their city had become a hell on earth and accused the US military of indiscriminate killing.

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The Fallujah they left behind was deserted and without clean water or electricity, they said. The injured had no access to hospitals and the dead were often summarily buried in back yards.

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Sarmad Kamil, a medical student who had volunteered to treat the injured in Fallujah, said: "While the Americans keep provoking us, we will keep fighting."

A cleric at the mosque said: "We know who the people were who killed the American contractors. But instead of negotiating with us, [US administrator Paul] Bremer has decided to have his revenge."

...

Dr Najeeb al-Ani, a member of the Iraqi Islamic party, spent several hours in Fallujah on Saturday as part of a peace delegation and corroborated many of the details given by the families.

He described how six houses had been turned into makeshift hospitals after US marines seized the city's main medical facility, used as a rebel base, on the first day of fighting.

Few Iraqis have been treated there since, according to Dr al-Ani, and a small civilian hospital near the town centre can only be used after 2pm.

The doctor said there were not enough rooms to treat the injured. During a one-hour visit to one house hospital, he watched an Iraqi surgeon perform three operations.

"Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in Fallujah yesterday," he said. "There is no law on earth that can justify what the Americans have done to innocent people."

...

[Mr. Adnan's] wife Hakima said: "There was little resistance in Fallujah before this week. People no longer believed in fighting the Americans. Now everyone belongs to the resistance."

As we drive through the back roads on the way to Falluja, US jets are pounding the area around the tiny village of Garma.

...

Stopping to rest at a tea shop before entering the besieged town, Ahmad, a 25-year-old with the worn face of a battle-hardened warrior, tells me of his intentions.

"We're going to assist our brothers in Falluja and try to prevent the massacre of Iraqis."

...

"Back at our office the Americans are shooting at us. I walk out of the bathroom and a laser is pointed at my chest," he says, referring to US sharpshooters in the area.

"We'd just bought cigarettes from a store across the street; no more than ten minutes later it was bombed."

...

"The US will never leave Iraq," he says more soberly. "You know what I want to see happen in Iraq? I want to see a federal Iraq where everyone from north to south, and east to west is fairly represented. We Arabs, Sunni, Shia, and Christian; the Kurds, the Turkmen � we are all Iraqis."

But his hopes and desires seem far away as the sound of bombs and mortar shells reverberate through our caf�. A few minutes later the driver of his lorry sounds the horn. Ahmad takes a final sip of his tea and says goodbye.

If the mounting toll is any indication, Ahmad will probably not make it out of Falluja alive.

Ahmed is only 21, his identically dressed younger brother looks five years younger, but both have been fighting the Americans since shortly after the war ended. Their eyes have a tired look more suited to old men, not near adolescents.

Before her son -- appointed as the spokesman for the family -- can even speak, his mother begins wailing. She has been watching her children and husband fight for months and the last week has been even more than she can bear. In the family's perception, the unconfirmed reports of hundreds of dead civilians are more than just reports. They represent neighbors, friends and family.

"Shit on Bush," she screams bordering on hysterical, the emotional release of having escaped the brutal urban fighting -- the worst since Iraq was invaded over a year ago. She and her children are safe now -- at least the four youngest that can bee seen. Her husband is still fighting and both her older sons will return later today to join him.

"Shit on Bush because he made this crisis," she continues. "What does he want? Why have these people come all the way from America to do this to us? Why is he doing it?"

"Did we knock on his door," she asks. "Bush comes and barges in to our house and we're not to fight?"

...

Surrounded by 15 of his brothers in a house used as a safe house by the resistance, Abu Freedom is wounded in his torso and legs.

"We were sitting in a house waiting to be given an operation," he explains. "Then orders from our chief came that we had two Syrian Fedayeen fighters in a house, one wounded and one dead. We were sent to rescue them."

"Nearby the house, an American sniper was using (a) minaret of a mosque to shoot people," he says. "When the commanders issued the code word, someone killed the sniper, then it was my job to hit the minaret with my (rocket propelled grenade) so the Americans couldn't use it again."

"Nearby we found the Syrians," he continues. "The dead one, the Americans had desecrated his body. They cut off his hands, head and took his eyes out and left him in a bag. So we helped the wounded guy and took the bag with us to bury him."

...

When asked why he fought, Abu Freedom is clear.

"Because I hate the Americans and hate the invaders," he says. "I don't want to see Americans in charge of my country."

In the other house on Monday, Ahmed is more eloquent on how the fighting can end and peace can come to Iraq.

"God willing Bush will fall down by the hands of Fallujah," he says, combining military and political rhetoric. "If John Kerry wins the election and withdraws the Americans troops from Iraq, and maybe just leaves a few in bases, then we will not fight. But Bush we will always fight."

Hundreds of families have driven out of Falluja over the last two days, taking advantage of the ceasefire the Americans offered. Families in Baghdad have provided food and money at mosques to help them, and many have taken refugees in.

The stories they tell have a common theme: how the Americans used to be good when they first arrived in Falluja, how arrogance and in sensitivity gradually alienated people, and how now under the pressure of so many deaths almost everyone supports the resistance, the mojahedin.

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"The mojahedin are our sons. I would become a mojahed myself. I can't bear to see Falluja being bombed and do nothing about it. Even my older sister wants to join them," said Umm Samir, who is 62.

...

He remembered the days of the monarchy when his uncle was a police sergeant and lived near the RAF base at Habbaniya.

"There were protest marches, and people threw stones, and burnt cars. But the British didn't shoot back.

"But now Britain joins America. Please write this. Is this the freedom and democracy they promised?" he said.

The video shows scenes from the streets of Al-Fallujah street, people trying to get drinking water, and convoys of medical and humanitarian aid.

Wheelchair-bound Khaled Huseein looked lost and in pain as his family, one of hundreds which have been displaced, prepared to spend the night among the date palms near this village some seven kilometres (four miles) south of Fallujah.

...

Thanks to the help of a local farmer, the family of six was able to shelter in the palm grove where some 40 displaced Fallujah residents were relying on aid from the Iraqi Red Crescent and locals.

The Red Crescent estimates some 5,000 families have been displaced by the fighting.

Reuters television footage from Falluja showed corpses of children, women and old men lying in the street beside body parts no one has had time to collect.

...

American behaviour had helped provoke ordinary people to join the resistance, she said, adding that even she and her older sister wanted to join the fighters.

"When the Americans arrived there were only about 50 guerrillas," another Falluja resident, Nada Rabee, told Reuters.

"By the end of the week there were a few thousand. They are just making the situation worse."

He noted that the U.S. troops were also targeting ambulances and civilians walking on the street before the lull in fighting.

The death toll in Falluja has sparked widespread international concern and has led to condemnation by the US-appointed Iraqi governing council.

...

Mr Bremer confirmed that the 620-strong battalion of newly trained Iraqi soldiers had refused to fight after members of the unit were attacked while passing through a Shia district of Baghdad.

According to Major General Paul Eaton, who is overseeing their training, the Iraqi soldiers had told him: "We did not sign up to fight Iraqis."

The report quoted an unnamed senior US officer as saying as many as a quarter of the new Iraqi security forces had "quit, changed sides, or otherwise failed to perform their duties".

I had heard these claims at third-hand before coming into Fallujah, but was skeptical. It's very difficult to find the real story here. But this I saw for myself. An ambulance with two neat, precise bullet-holes in the windshield on the driver's side, pointing down at an angle that indicated they would have hit the driver's chest (the snipers were on rooftops, and are trained to aim for the chest). Another ambulance again with a single, neat bullet-hole in the windshield. There's no way this was due to panicked spraying of fire. These were deliberate shots designed to kill the drivers.

...

Among the more laughable assertions of the Bush administration is that the mujaheddin are a small group of isolated "extremists" repudiated by the majority of Fallujah's population. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, the mujaheddin don't include women or very young children (we saw an 11-year-old boy with a Kalashnikov), old men, and are not necessarily even a majority of fighting-age men. But they are of the community and fully supported by it. Many of the wounded were brought in by the muj and they stood around openly conversing with doctors and others. They conferred together about logistical questions; not once did I see the muj threatening people with the ubiquitous Kalashnikovs.

...

A Special Forces colonel in the Vietnam War said of the town, Ben Tre, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it." That statement encapsulated the Vietnam War. The same is true in Iraq today -- Fallujah cannot be "saved" from its mujaheddin unless it is destroyed.

A patchy cease-fire remained in effect in this battle-torn city today as U.S. officials said they were seeking "political" solutions to pacify the area and, elsewhere in the country, disband a militia loyal to a virulently anti-American cleric.

The move to stress negotiations over military action marked a significant tactical shift for American officials here, who until the weekend had been vowing to crush the two insurgencies threatening Iraq's stability.

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In Fallouja, a week of intense fighting tapered off Sunday morning as the cease-fire, brokered overnight by two members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and local sheiks and clerics, took hold. The lead negotiator, acting council member Hachim Hassani, said late Sunday that the discussions were going well, and the cease-fire was extending into today.

For the moment, the focus was almost entirely on stopping the fighting; there was no talk of what the next steps might be, and it was unclear what terms would be acceptable to both sides. Forces hostile to the U.S. occupation have controlled the city for most of the last year, and a variety of U.S. approaches have failed to co-opt or uproot them.

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Kimmitt and Dan Senor, the top spokesman for the U.S. civilian authority that runs Iraq, said they halted their fighting because of complaints from Governing Council members about innocent people getting caught in the cross-fire.

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But many people who have fled Fallouja in recent days have told U.S. news outlets, including The Times, that many noncombatants have been killed in the fighting.

The lead negotiator, acting council member Hachim Hassani, said late Sunday that the discussions were going well and the cease-fire was extending into today. "This could work to the benefit of the coalition and Iraqis," he said.

Amnesty International today called on Coalition forces and armed insurgents in Iraq to do everything possible to protect civilians caught up in escalating fighting in cities across the country.

"The loss of life in Iraq in recent days is tragic and unacceptable. The parties to the conflict must immediately take all necessary measures to protect civilians in Iraq as required by international humanitarian law," said Amnesty International.

"There must be independent and impartial investigations into serious violations, including any unlawful killing of civilians, and those responsible should be brought to justice in line with international law."

As the Occupying Powers, Coalition forces have primary responsibility for ensuring the safety and welfare of the Iraqi population. Armed groups must also respect fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.