Israelis are accustomed to being on the lookout for suicide bombers. But today they were attacked by a suicide bulldozer driver, who plowed over cars and tipped over a bus on a busy downtown stretch -- killing three and injuring dozens before he was shot to death. From the Jerusalem Post:

"A half-dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus was also overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.

The attack, at the junction of Jaffa Road and Sarei Yisrael St., set off a panic in the area and left a large swath of damage in the heart of the capital. Traffic was halted, and hundreds of people fled through the streets in panic as medics treated the wounded.

A car was dragged several meters by the bulldozer before being crushed under the vehicle. The parents of a baby being treated in Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital have yet to be tracked down, and it is believed that the baby was thrown out of the car by one of his parents before the vehicle was crushed."

The soldier, 18-year-old Moshe Plesser, in a T-shirt and shorts riding his bike through the area, told the Post, "At one point he [the driver] yelled out 'Allah Akhbar' [God is great] and stepped on the gas pedal." Plesser then used a civilian's handgun to shoot Jabr Duwait, 30, three times in the head, stopping the rampage. Saving the day runs in the family: Plesser's brother-in-law, IDF Capt. David Shapira, shot the attacker in a March massacre at a rabbinical seminary.

Haaretz has video of the final moments of the rampage (caution: graphic content).

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Galilee Freedom Battalion (suspected of Hezbollah ties) all claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities were quick to believe that Duwait -- who had a criminal history and was working on a light-rail construction project -- was acting alone rather than at the orders of a Palestinian terror group. Hamas and Islamic Jihad called the bulldozer rampage "a natural reaction."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others have called for Duwait's East Jerusalem home to be destroyed. The Knesset had already been discussing taking away Israeli citizenship from the families of terrorists.

(Photo by Brian Hendler/Getty Images)