We continue to see brutal acts by the regime and the forces loyal to it. An example came from an outpost in front of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force a day ago. And the story goes like this. During daylight hours, two vehicles rapidly approached the Marine checkpoint at a high rate of speed. When they failed to stop, having been signaled by a psychological operations loudspeaker team present at the site, they were taken under fire by the checkpoint. The lead vehicle, a sedan, immediately halted, and the second vehicle, a truck, rear-ended it. And adult male, an adult female, and two children exited the sedan. Two Iraqi soldiers exited the truck with weapons and one of the soldiers shot and killed the adult female. After a brief firefight, both Iraqi soldiers and the three surviving civilians lay wounded. As the Marines approached, one of the wounded soldiers pulled out a weapon and was killed on the spot. The Marines evacuated the remaining wounded, and upon searching the truck found 120 millimeter mortars, and mortar ammunition.