FALLOUJA, Iraq — More than 10 weeks after the grisly killing and mutilation of four U.S. contract workers turned this town into an emblem of Iraq's wildfire insurgency, Fallouja has become a symbol of a different sort.
In the wake of a truce last month that averted an all-out assault by U.S. Marines, the conservative Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad has taken on the trappings of a mini-republic that lives largely according to its own rules, in defiance of the potent American military force that remains poised on its doorstep.
Fallouja's status as an autonomous fiefdom -- where local people say insurgents rule the streets and an increasingly austere brand of Islamic law has taken root -- could embolden other towns, particularly in like-minded Sunni tribal areas, to challenge the legitimacy of the country's transitional government as a scheduled hand-over of power to Iraqis approaches.
And the woes of a U.S.-sanctioned security force in this city on the banks of the Euphrates could bode ill for efforts by the American military and occupation authority to appease rebellious pockets of Iraq by setting up locally recruited forces intended to co-opt insurgents. In the dusty streets of Fallouja, the early May pullback by the Marines to stave off close-quarters urban combat and the likelihood of heavy civilian casualties is touted as a glorious victory for the insurgents, who enjoy overwhelming support here.
"The mujahedin are taking care of Fallouja now -- this is our reality," said Saad Duleimi, a well-to-do businessman and member of one of the area's most influential tribes. "They control all the affairs of the city. And that is what the people want."
The principal U.S. aims under the truce, which was reached in the wake of three weeks of fierce fighting between Marines and insurgents, do not appear even close to being achieved.
Those include collecting heavy weapons from insurgents, establishing a climate in which Western contractors could work in relative safety to help rebuild battle-wrecked parts of the city and bringing to justice the people behind the gruesome killings of the four workers from the Blackwater USA security firm.
Instead, the city remains awash in weaponry and a virtual no-go zone for foreigners, where on-the-road ambushes and abduction attempts are common.
No arrests have been made in the March 31 ambush in which the workers were killed and their corpses beaten and burned by a mob. Some of the victims' body parts were strung from a bridge over the river.
