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 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.

...

Fighter jets roared overhead, circling the outskirts of the city. American bombs continued to fall not far from us, and sporadic gunfire continued.

...

The NGOs are pulling out. Everyone knows the "cease-fire" was a lie. If this is a truce, what does war look like?

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt on Tuesday blamed the surging violence on foreign fighters, terrorists and a small number of Iraqis who are working with them.

Mahmood scoffed at that assertion.

"Only the people of Fallujah are resisting, and it is their right to fight," he said.

Brahimi also criticized the U.S. military operation in Fallujah.

"Collective punishment is certainly unacceptable and the siege of the city is absolutely unacceptable," he said.

...

In a five-hour battle the same night, one of two armored vehicles sent to resupply a front-line Marine position got lost during an ambush and ended up nearly half a mile inside the southern part of city.

The vehicle, with 20 Marines inside, came under an even larger ambush. At least 100 gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades, hitting it at least 10 times, knocking out its communications and its engine and paralyzing it.

...

The Marines in the armored vehicle fled into a nearby building, where they waited to be rescued. They threw back grenades that insurgents tossed over the wall and listened to gunmen whisper outside.

A rescue force, backed by four tanks, wandered the streets in search of the beleaguered vehicle, finding it by following black smoke. "We were firing in a 360-degree radius," said Lt. Joshua Glover, part of the team that reached the vehicle. While F-15 warplanes strafed the area for cover, the stricken armored vehicle was hooked to a tank and dragged away.

Heeding a call from their imam, Baghdad's Muslims have been rushing food and medical supplies to their local mosque for delivery to the beleaguered residents of Fallujah.

Since the mosque imam in Baghdad's Adhamiya district set up his appeal last week, the response has been phenomenal.

The mosque courtyard has been transformed into a giant warehouse filled with white UN bags containing rice or beans, boxes of vegetables and bottles of oil and water.

In one corner, there are stacks of cans bearing the sign: "USA - refined vegetables - fortified vitamin A."

Under the patio, dozens of buckets containing medicines are piled up, along with containers for blood donation and other surgical equipment.

"It took only an appeal from the imam and the faithful from the neighborhood flocked with supplies and medicines for the besieged residents of Fallujah," said Monder Moslah, a mosque security guard.

On Saturday, a supply convoy sent by ethnic Turkmen from the northern city of Kirkuk arrived, he added, highlighting what he said was a national example of solidarity by all Iraqi communities.

Since US marines launched their onslaught more than a week ago to flush out insurgents, two dozen convoys of five to 10 trucks each have left this mosque for Fallujah west of Baghdad, another mosque security official said.

...

"From rooftops (in Fallujah), the Americans shoot at everybody. Who can tolerate that? They are acting like (ousted Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein: carrying out collective massacres."

Inside the beleaguered city that once housed 300,000, all shops are closed. Residents are holed up in their homes and running out of food, said Abbas Ibrahim, 30, resident who managed to leave Fallujah Friday.

...

Iraq's long-repressed Shiite majority has reacted generously, with residents of Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City bastion sending truckloads of food and medical supplies to their Sunni compatriots in Fallujah.

A patchy truce around the besieged city of Fallujah started to unravel with a marine and nine Iraqis killed in sporadic fighting and an American helicopter forced down under fire.

At the same time, a senior coalition official said the alleged mastermind of Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, was believed to be in the area. "Zarqawi is believed to be in Fallujah or nearby," said Dan Senor.

Occupation forces in Iraq have used F16 fighter planes to bomb the Nizal neighbourhood in Falluja, Aljazeera TV's correspondent has reported.

"Everyone got shot, even the ones who were holding a white flag," Naser told IRIN in Baghdad, shaking his head. "We called an ambulance, and the ambulance driver was also shot."

With a US Apache helicopter hovering above, Kadher Fudella took her children and began to run. She did not stop until she reached the highway, along with scores of other refugees, flagging down cars headed to Baghdad.

"My children tried to run away and the helicopters chased them," says Ms. Fudella, breaking into tears. "Families were running through the streets.... Windows were broken, and many, many people were dead."

...

Back in Baghdad, Fallujah's refugees are still reeling from the violence they witnessed last week. As many as 60,000 - one fifth of the city - may have poured into Baghdad since Friday, taking shelter in private homes and mosques. US forces say civilians have been caught in the crossfire, but that their primary mission was to "take out insurgents."

...

The women say they hid with their children in their homes from Wednesday until fleeing over the weekend, while many of the men stayed behind. "I have not seen my husband since Friday," says Turka Hashim, a crying baby in her arms. Ms. Hashim says she believes he stayed in Fallujah to fight. In fact, many of the men in the shelter displayed anger.

Take Hamid Ali. He says he only came to the Sunni Islamic Party headquarters in Baghdad to find a safe place to relocate his family.

He arrived late Sunday evening, having fled by foot and later by car. "I only came here to drop off my family. I will be going back to Fallujah to help the resistance as soon as possible." Ali was surrounded by several Fallujan men in their 20s and 30s who nodded in agreement.

...

"We have no hope. Half of our family is in Fallujah, and we don't know anything about them," says Mr. Abid's wife, Hakima. "There's darkness everywhere."

The family fell silent, until their son Mohammed Adnan added his take, that the US has only magnified the problems. "Before it was a small, specific group that fought the USA," he says. "Now it is every family. They all want revenge."

MR Now, we have been hearing there is a cease-fire. Is there a cease-fire in effect?

LG No, quite the opposite. Effectively they are fighting. The US has snipers around the city from the West into the center, in houses all around the main streets and are picking off people on the streets, cars and ambulances.

MR Do you mean they are actually firing on ambulances?

LG Yeah, I mean, indeed. My colleague and I and some international volunteers from the United Kingdom and the US had to take over the responsibility for getting patients out of bomb damaged hospitals to one of the remaining make-shift hospitals, which is actually a converted doctors surgery effectively � because the ambulances were being shot at by the US forces. In fact, my colleague who is not very far away from me at the moment, was in one of the last functioning ambulances in Fallujah when he was sniped driving. I think they fired four or five rounds at it, just missing him, I think the ambulance was destroyed. When we left, that was this morning, that was the last ambulance � more or less � in Fallujah.

...

MR How many people have you ferried out?

LG Let's see we took out � uh 14 today; a kid who had half his face shot off, a boy of four who had his arm and leg blown off, a pregnant woman, some � there was a man, a dying man, whose leg had come off � I suppose about 18, 19 people. You know we are working from a car, we have one old battered Japanese saloon, we managed to get a hold of a bus, um which we took out yesterday. But we are now down to our last 20, 27 dollars so I think we will be back in the car. So, you know, we take what we can.

"The truce has been extended by 48 hours starting today at 9.00am (0500 GMT), upon the agreement of the two sides," said Fouad Rawi, a senior official of the Iraqi Islamic Party which has been leading mediation talks.

"It is mainly meant to allow the reopening of the Fallujah General Hospital and the Jordanian Hospital which had been forced to close because of the siege imposed by the marines," he said.

Rawi said the city's two major hospitals had been "forced to shut down after US marines blocked roads leading to them, including a bridge which had been the only way to reach the general hospital".

'It is mainly meant to allow the reopening of the Fallujah General Hospital'

"Doctors, nurses and equipment could not reach them, so they were closed down," he said.

"Now, the 48 hours will help the staff reach the hospitals to reopen them and sterilise them."

...

"Yesterday, there were a few breaches by the marine snipers and tanks which entered a neighborhood. It is regrettable because we need calm to work toward a final, comprehensive solution," he said.

"We are working to help the political solution prevail over the military solution."

The chaos of battle complicates the task of those seeking the truth.

"At the present time, because of the security situation, our movements are rather limited," said a Human Rights Watch researcher, Hania Mufti. "One needs to verify the information directly. There are eyewitnesses that need to be interviewed, and people who we need to talk for forensic evidence that may be available.

"One needs to see whether they were unarmed civilians going about their business, what kind of force the United States was using, and the circumstances surrounding the killing of civilians in Falluja," she said.

Jo Wilding, a volunteer who accompanied other foreigners and Iraqis carrying medical supplies to a clinic in Falluja on Saturday, gave her account of civilians caught up the offensive.

...

Four-year-old Ali Nasser Fadil lies in a Baghdad hospital, his eyes wide and fixed on a spot on the ceiling. Before reaching the hospital, his left leg was crudely amputated by Iraqi doctors. A deep gash across his groin and upper thigh was barely stitched up when he was brought in.

"He was in danger of dying," said Dr. Alessandro Bartolini, who had to amputate Ali's left hand. "It is blast injuries," he said.

Ali's father said he moved his children to their grandfather's house on the outskirts of Falluja for safety, but the area was hit in an American air strike. "When I reached my child," he said, "it was as if he was sleeping."

Elsewhere, 10-year-old Waed Joda spoke for his father, who wounded by shrapnel. The bandage swathing the man's shoulder and arm was soaked through with blood.

"American snipers shot at us as we were trying to flee Falluja," he said. "We were in the car, we jumped out and tried to take cover in some shops. Falluja has become destroyed."

Iraqi doctors and international volunteers assisting Doctors Without Borders entered the city on Saturday, April 10 in a bus loaded with medical supplies from agencies in Baghdad. The city had been under siege by US troops for six days following the lynching of four U.S. security agents.

Volunteers assisting Doctors Without Borders in Fallujah reported that U.S. Marine snipers were "shooting at anyone who moves".

...

The makeshift medical centre has no blankets or anaesthesia.

Exhausted doctors struggled to respond to the constant streams of wounded people.

...

The volunteers saw one man who burned from head to foot, and another who was bleeding from several wounds.

The men said a cluster bomb had caused their injuries.

One of the volunteers accompanied an ambulance crew to pick up a woman going into premature labour. On the way, U.S. snipers reportedly began firing at the ambulance. The ambulance turned off its sirens, then its lights, but the soldiers continued firing.

The ambulance began backing away from the soldiers, but they continued firing and blew out the vehicle's tire. The crew escaped without injury, but they were unable to reach the woman.

In Falluja, Iraqi mediators said they had extended a much-violated truce for 48 hours.

They said they had hammered out a deal under which Iraqi police would return to duty and U.S. forces would withdraw. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military.

The Marines called a halt to offensive operations on Friday to allow negotiations between U.S.-allied Iraqis and Fallujah representatives in an attempt to ease the violence. Gunmen in the city called a cease-fire Sunday. But Marines have been responding to guerrilla fire - and striking gunmen who appear about to attack.

Insurgents on Wednesday offered the Iraqi equivalent of $7,000 (U.S.) for anyone who kills Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, after he called for Fallujah's residents to handover militants to the United States.

"We announce a bounty of 10 million Iraqi dinar for whoever brings the head of this pig," the statement said.

"Civilians continue to pay the ultimate price. This tragedy must be stopped and those responsible for civilian deaths must be held accountable," said Amnesty International

"It is clear from recent events in Falluja that the parties to the conflict have disregarded international humanitarian law. A full, independent and impartial investigation is needed now," said Amnesty International.

The president used more than a quarter of the one-hour time allotted to a news conference to deliver an unusually long opening statement defending what he called America's "historic mission" in Iraq, saying that country could become either peaceful or a terrorist haven that would threaten the United States and the world.

The consequences of failure, he said, are "unthinkable."

"Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world," Bush said in the statement. "We must not waver."

...

Pressed at one point on whether he had made any mistake since the war began, Bush appeared taken aback and said he could not think of one.

...

Bush is expected to clear up one uncertainty soon by naming the envoy who will replace L. Paul Bremer III as the top American official in Iraq.

The post is reported likely to go to veteran diplomat John D. Negroponte, currently the U.S. representative to the United Nations, who will nominated as the first U.S. ambassador in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Negroponte has broad experience serving in many areas of the world but not in the Middle East. His tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras during the 1980s U.S.-backed war against Nicaragua's leftist government remains controversial. Critics accuse him of ignoring widespread Honduran human rights abuses, a charge he rejects.

...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday that because of the deteriorating security situation in the country, he is not planning at this point to send in a large team, raising doubts about how much of a role the United Nations will play in planning for national assembly elections set for December or January and the preparation of a new Iraqi constitution.