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)

Mongolians are up in arms about the results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, claiming that the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (which also ruled in the Soviet era) employed fraud to top opposition democratic movements. The subsequent clashes with police and attack on the ruling party's headquarters prompted President Nambaryn Enkhbayar to declare a four-day state of emergency and night curfew in Ulan Bator.

More from the Associated Press:

"The crowd thinned slightly after the emergency declaration in the early hours of Wednesday, though some protesters had begun looting paintings from an art gallery and televisions from government offices. Others vandalized cars parked on downtown streets.

Enkhbayar, a member of the governing party, acknowledged the protesters' complaints about the election but appealed for calm.

'Let's sit down and solve the election fraud,' he said on national television.

...Fraud accusations originally centered on two districts in Ulan Bator that were awarded to the governing party but were contested by two popular members of the Civic Movement party. Following that, protesters called the entire election into question, with opposition Democrats saying that their party, not the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had won the election.

Some protesters pushed into the General Election Commission offices to demand that officials resign because of alleged voting irregularities and fraud. The commission defended the vote, but at least one party called for a recount in some districts of Ulan Bator."

The vote was largely focused on the recent discoveries of big gold, copper, and coal deposits in the impoverished nation. The Mongolian Democratic Party believes that private Mongolian companies should hold a majority stake in the development of the mineral deposits.

A few days ago, I was dining with some South African friends who told me the sad tale of a friend of a friend in Zimbabwe: He had asthma, like a lot of people live with, but could not afford the simple albuterol inhaler to survive attacks. He died from an asthma attack.

In a country with one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, his story is surely -- and unfortunately -- not unusual. But as of today, Zimbabwe gets a sixth term of the man who has taken his country down the slope of economic ruin. This time last week, when I was writing a column on the situation there, I looked up the exchange rates to see that one U.S. dollar equaled 7 billion Zimbabwean dollars. Just now, I ran the exchange rate again, and it's one U.S. dollar to 10.5 billion Zimbabwean dollars.

Possibly in a wan attempt to ward off international anger -- and likely hoping that will cease if Zimbabwe fades into the background of global consciousness again -- Robert Mugabe, headed to the African Union meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh tomorrow, claims he's developed a new spirit of cooperation. "Indeed it is my hope that sooner rather than later, we shall as diverse political parties hold consultations towards such serious dialogue as to minimize our differences and enhance the area of unity and cooperation,'' he said in his inauguration address. Dialogue might be possible if Mugabe's loyalists weren't conducting orchestrated attacks on Zimbabweans.

But what's really next for Zimbabwe?

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Pakistani forces hit at the lawless tribal region near the Khyber Pass today, hunting for Taliban militants in the NWFP. But it seems to be quite a limited operation, and in keeping with what has been Pakistan's general policy toward terrorists: Push them back and keep them contained in their little corner.

From the International Herald Tribune:

"The show of force on Saturday, which included a blockade around the area of Bara in Khyber agency where Mangal Bagh keeps most of his fighters, was limited to the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that is considered poorly equipped and generally demoralized.

...The main goal of the operation, according to a senior military officer, was to destroy the bases of Mangal Bagh in Bara. Khattak said he expected the operation to be limited and to be completed in five days.

Residents in Sipah, where Mangal Bagh lives, and in Shalober, the site of one of his bases, said by telephone that his forces had left both places by Friday. Mangal Bagh returned to his house in Sipah late Friday night and then left at 4 a.m. Saturday, said Rauf Khan Afridi, a resident of the town who was reached by telephone.

Afridi said that Mangal Bagh had returned to Bara on Saturday night and announced that he would convene a meeting of his leadership to discuss the situation."

The Associated Press reported that the headquarters of Bagh, leader of the Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam), was blown up and that Bagh fled further toward the Afghan border.

This is the first major military action since the coalition opposed to the rule of President Pervez Musharraf won parliamentary elections last spring.

(Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)