Whose Truce?

The two teams are part of the 100 Marine sharpshooters deployed by three battalions around the city. One sniper secreted away in another corner of Fallujah has “26 confirmed kills,” military officers here report. …The snipers were deployed in early April, as guerrilla ambushes claimed more than 50 Marine lives….
…the sharpshooters are an offensive force – at a time when most Marines are under orders to fire only when attacked.
[Article]
Both sides use snipers. But, does…
“at a time when most Marines are under orders to fire only when attacked,”
mean:
“at a time when most Marines are adhering to the truce.”
“Fire only when attacked” has been the rule during the truce. Has the very same rule been in effect outside of the truce? We certainly go after houses from which no current attack is being waged.
This is inherently confusing verbiage, and this “admission” could honestly be just a mix-up by the reporter–or by me. Hopefully, it is.
Otherwise it could easily be misinterpreted (perhaps by one of those “inflammatory” Iraqi newspapers that we might have missed)
as command-sanctioned truce-violations–of the kind we find so craven and inexplicable coming from the other side.