FALLUJAH, 13 November 2004 — US Marine Corporal Will Porter has had to throw caution to the wind and change tactics as die-hard insurgents in Fallujah snipe from carefully chosen positions or lie in wait in barricaded cellars.

“I’m supposed to shoot into the houses before our troops go in,” a weary Porter told an AFP correspondent in this dusty, devastated city that was once home to around 300,000 fiercely independent Sunni Muslims.

As far as the Marines are concerned, those who remain are the enemy. There is no longer time to establish whether civilians might be inside these houses in the Jolan neighborhood, the hub of Fallujah’s insurgency.

“It’s extremely dangerous right now because the insurgents have nowhere to go, they are just sitting in houses waiting for us to come in,” he said.

The city was mostly eerily silent yesterday but occasional, savage barrages of US fire shattered the calm, as determined groups of insurgents were targeted.

On the fourth day of the US-led assault, dubbed Operation Dawn, Marines were moving slowly through the city. The painstaking business of clearing out buildings belied the speed with which they thrust into Fallujah early this week.

“Some battalions are pushing through the city and others are clearing it. Battalions like ours are coming from behind, going house-to-house and killing the guys,” said Marine Lt. Michael Prato.

The insurgents are visibly desperate. The Marines have found what they believe is evidence they are killing less experienced fighters who would otherwise have turned themselves in or fled by now.

A rebel body with its feet hacked off, a teenager with a bullet in his chest and up to five bodies that were probably not the victims of US fire all seem to point to the same conclusion.

“Clearly they have been killing some of their own,” said Captain Drew McNulty.

Lt. Ian Duncan is one of a small group of specialists who have called in anywhere from 200 to 250 targeted strikes, either by aircraft or mortar fire, in the Jolan neighborhood.

Sitting on a rooftop with a colleague early yesterday, the 22-year-old Marine officer called in a salvo of mortar fire on a building three blocks away. A deafening boom ripped the air, and smoke and dust billowed into the sky. “A sniper was in that building. He is lying there now,” Duncan said.

The pungent smell of death constantly assaults the senses, the AFP reporter said. Weapons, broken, spent and unused, litter the streets among fallen power and telephone lines.

Meanwhile, some of Fallujah’s residents, two thirds of whom are thought to have fled before the assault, started to slowly emerge from their homes.

A few spoke with relief knowing they had survived and would no longer have to live with the mujahedeen, others spoke with ambivalence about the US forces and the armed men who have ruled the city with a gun since April.

Sitting inside a villa with his wife, their baby and eight other family members, Adnan Hadi explained how he had tried but was unable to escape Fallujah before the assault started late Monday.

“We were very frightened,” he said. “If the Americans had not come today we would have run out of food.”

He also expressed relief that his family, though never really threatened by the insurgents, would no longer face the risk of violence from every side.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about it any more,” Hadi said.

Another resident, Haytham Ali, said he stayed behind because the last time he left his home someone robbed it. Reaching desperation point yesterday, he and his wife walked out the door and headed south holding a white flag. “Whoever is strong and can make the city safe, I want,” he said.