Falluja's killing streets

The marines have been pounding Falluja since Monday

About 1,200 US marines backed by aircraft have been fighting Iraqi insurgents in Falluja, the epicentre of the Sunni rebellion, west of Baghdad.

The situation there is difficult to gauge, since US-forces sealed the city at the start of their offensive on Monday.

However, reporters at the scene speak of fierce clashes in recent days.

"I've seen dead marines and I've seen dead insurgents," Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times told the BBC.

"I've seen hand-to-hand, street-to-street clearing - tanks exploding buildings where insurgents are thought to be."

AFP news agency says bodies were left to rot in the streets, as people cowered indoors, afraid to retrieve the corpses.

Casualties

The fighting so far has focused on an industrial area in the south-east of the city.

"I've seen Humvees (US military vehicles) racing through the streets to cut off the insurgents, and I've seen insurgents racing to block streets and to channel the marines," Mr Perry said.

At night the insurgents use mortar to try to shell marine positions outside the city, Mr Perry added.

"Some of it at night is very colourful - it's like the northern lights," he said.

The death toll is unclear after four days of fighting in a city of 300,000.

Some news agencies speak of hundreds of dead civilians.

On Friday residents buried relatives in a football stadium, as access to cemeteries on the outskirts of the city was blocked, the Associated Press reported.

Reprieve

On Friday, the marines suspended operations to allow women, children and older men to leave Falluja.

The insurgents have shown strong resistance

Cars packed with civilians filled the highway leading out of the city to west, AFP news agency reported.

Others were seen fleeing on foot through backstreets.

However, Pamela Constable of the Washington Post told the BBC it was impossible to tell how many people had left.

She also said that fighting was not as fierce on Friday as it had been on previous days, with US troops focusing on consolidating their apparent hold on industrial areas.

The temporary lull has also enabled relief workers to bring in food and medicine into the besieged city.

AFP says that on Thursday residents were invited to go to hospitals and mosques where Sunni clerics handed out meagre rations.