Outside, in the bomb-blasted streets, up to 5,000 die-hard insurgents were out to kill. Inside, on a screen accurate enough to show rats scavenging on the rubbish piles, the battle between luminous green tanks and luminous green gunmen seemed almost abstract.

Only the shock of the explosions and the occasional back blast of dust when a gunner opened fire reminded us we were in the midst of the most desperate urban battle since the fall of Baghdad. That, and the shrapnel which went right through my arm later in the morning.

The assault had begun with a day of intense bombardment of the rebels' positions on Monday - a vast display of artillery, tanks and war planes hitting the buildings where guerrillas were believed to be lurking, ready to detonate huge buried mines as the US Army advanced.

Airbursts of shrapnel sent a vast jellyfish of smoke drifting into the city, raining fire on guerrillas perched on the rooftops.
As night fell over the darkened city, the explosions lit up the sky and American troops preparing to fight pulled up deckchairs to watch the show.

Two US Marine battalions then stormed Fallujah's disused train station and a block of apartments on the edge of town.

Sappers blasted a hole through the railway embankment, simultaneously dropping trails of explosives to clear a path through a guerrilla minefield. At 2am our column of about 20 tanks and Bradleys of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, rolled in, not knowing whether the guerrillas had died, fled or were waiting farther back with more booby traps or even the cyanide gas they had boasted of possessing.

Progress was a mere crawl as the drivers spotted huge IEDs - improvised explosive devices - that can blow a Bradley in half. The gunners fired into them, triggering a series of massive explosions.

'There were too many IEDs to count,' said Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Rainey, the cavalry battalion commander who rode into battle with his men.

Watching the green screen was nerve-racking. With buildings wrecked and streets churned up, there were potential booby traps everywhere. Then, as the column lumbered down a main road, the guerrillas appeared.

They emerged from gates, alleyways and rooftops, alone or in small groups. Wherever they faced an armoured vehicle, they died where they stood.

'I think there are committed fighters out there who want to die in Fallujah. We are in the process of allowing them to self-actualise,' said Lieutenant-Colonel Rainey, a bluffed veteran. The resistance was determined, but hardly the apocalyptic showdown the guerrillas had pledged. They had threatened to throw hundreds of suicide bombers at the Americans, but in the darkness they were stumbling while the American gunners could see clearly.

As the column advanced, our Bradley fell back. Ahead of us an Iraqi man appeared at his garden gate with binoculars. He peered at the column. Three times he ducked in and out, before our vehicle lurched forward for a closer look. He reappeared with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) that he pointed straight at us. The turret commander yelled to the gunner: 'Get him, get him, get him.'

Facing the barrel of the RPG, our journalistic objectivity evaporated. The man ducked back as the gunner fired, killing him on the spot.

As dawn broke, firing subsided. Columns of Marines, fresh from skirmishes on the edge of town, headed into Jolan's streets to the accompaniment of heavy fire. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers walked through the breach in the berm, looking more like a Second World War army than a 21st-century force.

Then, in a surreal turn, the US Army's psychological warfare team drove in from the desert, Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blaring from loudspeakers: war imitating the movies, imitating war.

As the pitch of the battle rose again, we reached the cavalry's provisional base, a former school seized from the guerrillas. Ducking through classrooms and over bulldozed walls to avoid snipers, I felt an intense burning in my left arm after an RPG hit the ground close by. I only realised I had been hit by shrapnel when I reached up with my right hand and felt gushing blood.

With a soldier holding an IV bag next to me, we ran back to the Bradley, which evacuated me to a rear base hospital rapidly filling up with wounded US and Iraqi troops, as well as injured Iraqi fighters handcuffed on bloody stretchers.

Times Recommends

• Rebel militias dig in as Russia leaves Georgia
• Lebanon's drug barons reap a bumper harvest
• A chilly wind is blowing down Main Street