The resistance fighters inside Fallujah, said to number about 2,000, are divided into several factions. Four powerful Islamic leaders inside the city exert a measure of authority over most of the mujahedin; Mohammed and his group are loyal to a revered imam who preaches at one of the city's bigger mosques. It was this imam, we learn, who gave orders that any foreigner who enters Jolan without his permission should be thoroughly questioned. But other mujahedin in the city aren't beholden to any of the local clerics. These include foreign fighters and hard-line local jihadis, men who share the same inflexible hatred of the West as those who beheaded the American contractor Nick Berg last week. Mohammed tells us we were "lucky" that his group, rather than the hard-liners, had arrested us. "They are in the neighborhood," he warns us.

Mohammed and the other fighters we talk to make it clear that the quiet in Fallujah isn't likely to last. Although General Abdul-Latif and his Fallujah Brigade managed to enforce an uneasy ceasefire, the U.S. Marines who surround the city have demanded that the resistance give up its heavy weapons, turn over all those involved in the Blackwater murders and expel foreign fighters from the city. Those demands, all the insurgents we spoke to agree, are unacceptable. "We won't stop fighting until the occupation ends," Mohammed says. After eight hours, the resistance finally accepts that we are journalists, not spies, and allows us to leave. My colleague and I lie down in the back of a battered car and are driven through town—past crowds of heavily armed mujahedin—to safety at the imam's mosque. "You have remained in our city much longer than you expected," the cleric says apologetically, smiling and clasping our hands. There isn't any talk about staying around for supper.