Greater love

A very moving story by Michael Yon, based in Mosul at the moment. It happened in a village just outside the city. A suicide bomber dressed as a woman, the explosive packed with ball bearings to maximise the kill, approached a mosque at prayer time. One of the mosque guards saw through the disguise, ran to the man and gripped him in a bear hug, so setting off the bomb.

Read Yon's complete account; it's very good. It includes this digression about bomber tactics.

I remember the story told to me by Tennessee National Guardsman of another such man who had grabbed the hand of a nearby child as cover, then walked over to some policemen before detonating himself and the child. I remember the bomber who rammed a car full of explosives into vehicle full of American soldiers in Mosul. The Americans had been surrounded by Iraqi children, and the bomber could have waited a block or two then attack the Americans man-on-man, but instead he chose to blow up the Iraqi kids. Sometimes we see the torn and mangled hunks of flesh. Sometimes their open bodies curl a baleful steam into the cold morning air.