In a charity hospital operating in tents because its building was damaged by bombing, a young Arab fighter writhed in agony while blood seeped from his ears, eyes, nose and mouth. A doctor said the hospital, donated by the United Arab Emirates, counted 32 civilian wounded by Wednesday, including nine women and four children.
As civilians filed out of the city, scores of fighters put down their guns and joined them, residents said. Several told a witness that they were not quitting the war, but rather moving to open a second front in Baqubah, an insurgent hotbed northeast of Baghdad.
Marines arrest men in the center of Fallujah, where U.S. forces battled pockets of insurgents.
(Anja Niedringhaus -- AP)
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_____Live From Fallujah_____
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Transcript: The Post's Jackie Spinner answers questions on how the battle for Fallujah is progressing.
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_____Photos From Fallujah_____
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Photo Gallery: U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi government soldiers, continued to battle for the rebel, mostly Sunni city four days after the offensive began.
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As the new refugees recounted the events of recent days and weeks, a picture of the battle from the insurgents' side began to emerge. Witnesses described an insurgency fractured by distrust and rivalries between locals and foreigners, and visibly shaken by the thunderous U.S. assault.
The foreigners found slain Thursday in southern Fallujah were described as foot soldiers with Monotheism and Jihad, a guerrilla group headed by Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi that now calls itself al Qaeda in Iraq. In the plans developed by insurgent leaders for a coordinated defense of the city, Zarqawi's fighters were to man bunkers in two neighborhoods, according to witnesses. Others were to be defended by various Iraqi insurgent groups, including the First Army of Mohammad and Ansar al-Sunna Army.
But residents said strains between the local insurgents and the foreigners quickly turned into a deep schism under the intense pressure of the U.S.-led offensive. When a senior Zarqawi commander was found dead of a bullet to the head during the battle, debate ensued over whether he was killed from a distance by a U.S. sniper or at close range by an Iraqi insurgent, residents said.
Residents said everyone in the city, including the insurgents, was stunned by the firepower the Americans brought to the battle. Guerrillas counted 40 armored vehicles approaching their positions as night fell Monday.
The insurgents suffered their worst single loss -- at least 50 dead -- counterattacking U.S. forces who had taken the Rawdha Muhammediya mosque that had served as the insurgency's headquarters, witnesses said. The witnesses said they also counted as many as 10 American bodies.
"The confrontation with the American Army, which is the most powerful military organization in the world, is itself a great victory for us," said Abdullah Janabi, head of the mujaheddin shura, the council that had ruled Fallujah as a self-appointed government since April. "We were proud enough that Fallujah . . . was able to fight and confront America for seven months and still force the Americans and the Iraqi government to sit down and negotiate."
The kidnap victim discovered Wednesday by Marines was shackled to a wall by his wrists and ankles, according to Maj. Francis Piccoli, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. When the Marines entered the house, the driver, who speaks little English, called out "Uncle, uncle" to communicate with the troops.
Video footage shot by an ABC crew showed the man, shirtless and wrapped in a wool Marine-issue blanket, saying through an interpreter that when his captors fled, he told them he would die without food or water. They responded: "We brought you here to die."
In the video footage, the man, still wearing handcuffs, said he had been kidnapped while walking through Abu Ghraib. Two men grabbed him and shoved him into a car, he said.
Vick reported from Baghdad. Staff writer Josh White in Washington contributed to this report.
