The loud music recalls the Army's use of rap and rock to help flush out Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega after the December 1989 invasion on his country, and the FBI's blaring progressively more irritating tunes in an attempt to end a standoff with armed members of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas in 1993.

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Along the front line, Marines have been firing warning shots to scare away dogs chewing on corpses. In some cases, the troops have wrapped bodies in blankets and buried them in shallow graves.

A shaky truce exists between the Marines who surround the city and the fighters within the circle. But the cease-fire allows the Marines to carry out defensive operations within the city, which they define as, among other things, allowing fire on insurgents who display weapons, break the curfew or move their forces toward U.S. troops.

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Unlike most Marines, the sniper sees his enemy before killing him. The enemy has a face.

Most combatants get only a glimpse of their enemies. The distance is too great, the spray of bullets too rapid.

But the sniper, with time to set up his shot, sees his victims more clearly through a powerful scope: their faces, their eyes, the weapons in their hands. And their expression when the bullet hits 'their center mass.'

'You have to have a combat mind-set,' the corporal said.

Unlike other infantry troops, the sniper has greater confidence that his shot won't hit a civilian or a 'friendly.'

Everybody in Falluja has lost someone. There is not a person here who doesn't have a close friend or relative who has been killed, and a lot of them have lost several.

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The times I have been shot at - once in an ambulance and once on foot trying to deliver medical supplies - it was US snipers in both cases. It is so unacceptable to stop medical aid getting through. They could have just asked to search us.

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Now the people you see on the streets of Falluja are the fighters. Everyone else is staying indoors. We were able to evacuate some women and children from their houses. We were asked to go and pick up some people close to a marine line.

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Both sides have been firing, despite the ceasefire. On Wednesday night some mojahedin were trying to shoot down a drone plane. There are young children involved in the fighting. I saw boys, about 11 years old, masked up and holding AK-47s.

There is nowhere in Falluja that is safe . The only place people can go is Baghdad. At the checkpoint leaving Falluja towards Baghdad, women and children have been trying to leave, but in cars driven by men (women don't drive here) so they weren't allowed out. They are not letting men aged 14 to 45 - of "fighting age" - leave the city.

We negotiated so that one male driver was allowed per car through the checkpoint. But people fear that once a large proportion of women and children leave, the Americans will destroy the city.

Gunfire was nearly halted in Fallujah on Friday night, and the quiet continued through Saturday. A nominal truce since April 11 had been repeatedly shaken by nighttime battles as both insurgents and Marines dug in.

Talks toward ending the standoff were to resume Monday, but the top U.S. military negotiator suggested their continuation depended on continued quiet.

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Negotiations outside Fallujah focused on strengthening a fragile truce, allowing residents access to hospitals and arranging the return of tens of thousands who have fled the city.

The two sides are also working on a way to carry out the handover of the killers of four American civilians, whose slaying and mutilation sparked the Marine assault on Fallujah, launched on April 5, a representative of the Iraqi Governing Council at the talks said.

"We have a mechanism for that, and when we conclude our talks we will announce that," Hashem al-Hassani told reporters after six hours of negotiations ended.

If the cease-fire holds and talks continue, negotiators have suggested they could move on to tackle more extensive moves sought by the Americans: the surrender of masses of weapons in the hands of insurgents, the return of police and Iraqi security forces to their posts and the handover of "terrorists and foreign militants."

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In the first round of talks Friday, U.S. officials agreed to reposition troops to allow Fallujah residents better access to hospitals.

At the southern entrance to Fallujah, U.S. troops turned back a convoy of trucks bearing humanitarian supplies sent by the Iraqi Commerce Ministry.