The Three Jars

More great stuff from Michael Yon, freelance journalist reporting from the thick of it in Iraq:

Mosul police were driving downtown when a fusilade of machine gun fire penetrated their truck. The guns began to cool, having shot seven policemen dead. Nearby, a Deuce Four combat patrol came upon three suspicious cars driving erratically. The first car sped away, but the second car--a taxi--was not so lucky, because the driver of the third car apparently panicked and smashed headlong into the rear of taxi.

The taxi driver bolted from his car. There were three passengers in the third car, now accordianed into the back end of the taxi. The front seat passenger tested the mathematics describing physics, stopping his inertia by smashing his head into the windshield, leaving a complete impression of his Tunisian face.

As the Americans stopped and dropped ramps, all three passengers bolted. They ran to the right, leaving a trail of tossed weapons on the road that included two AKs, a grenade and a pistol, and two RPGs and four RPG rounds in their car. The Americans, SSG Freed, Tuzza, and Specialists Hood, Reynolds, Holden, Chacon and others, all led by LT Dave Webb, got after the terrorists.SSG Freed followed the trail of glistening blood-drops from the crash scene for three blocks into a house until he came face to lacerated face with the Tunisian, tackling him as he climbed the back wall of a house.

Meanwhile, the taxi driver had taken refuge in a store behind a counter, and when an American soldier came 'round, the owner subtly signaled with his eyes that a terrorist was hiding behind his counter. Busted.

The soldiers came under small arms fire, perhaps from the car that escaped, but held tight and rounded up four fighters. The Tunisian got busy telling everything he knew. Such is the burden of foreign fighters on the Iraqi terror networks. When caught, they normally tell everything as fast as they can, unleashing cascading rapids of details about insurgent plans, people and resources.