Without A Name: Someone You Should Know

[Annie]

The 'someone you should know' is usually posted in miltary, but in this case:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-hands-of-god.htm

...He was dressed as a woman as he walked down the alley toward the mosque full of worshippers. It was Friday, just before Ashura, and the air was chilled...

The bomb strapped to his body was studded with ball-bearings so that he could kill more villagers as they gathered for prayer. The detonation would eviscerate and dismember those closest, shattering bones into fragments, but the ball-bearings would ensure lethality beyond the percussive edge of the blast wave, ripping through the flesh of people who might not have been knocked down by the explosion...

As the murderer dressed in women’s clothes walked purposefully toward his target, there was a village man ahead. But under the guise of a simple villager was a true Martyr, and he, too, had his target in sight. The Martyr had seen through the disguise, but he had no gun. No bomb. No rocket. No stone. No time.

The Martyr walked up to the murderer and lunged into a bear hug, on the spot where we were now standing....

 

[Annie]

I forgot to add this, I'm on his email list:

Greetings from Iraq :



When I arrived in Mosul a few weeks ago, they were getting about 1 car bomb per week. Now it’s up to about 1 per day. The fighting is intensifying here, and that’s the bad news. There is some good news, however: Iraqi Security Forces, though taking losses, are thoroughly punishing the enemy here. Just a few days ago, the enemy launched a large and well-planned attack on a police station. In late 2004 or 2005, such an attack would have been devastating – and was. But this time, when the enemy demanded the Iraq Police surrender, the police responded with gunfire. Lots of it. After several hours of fighting, the enemy fled in front of their blood trails.

I'll be writing about that incident in an upcoming dispatch. Meanwhile, a new dispatch is available at: “The Hands of God.” In addition to the audio file of a conversation between American soldiers and Iraqi villagers, after a homicide bomber attack, it also includes links to several previous dispatches. To get a better context for the new reports out of Mosul , readers might want to read Gates of Fire and Battle for Mosul IV.



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Respectfully,



Michael

Michael Yon
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Westport Pt MA 02791