Like I said earlier, Kevin, we'll never know The Truth; and too many will pick & choose which "facts" they want to believe. I remain cynical about all 3 sides (the (US) military is almost incapable of telling the unspun truth, the Communist Italian journalist not only is not in a position to be objective by personal experience, she has a twice-over natural bent for distortion, the Italian govt is currently trying to recover a minor PR disaster of it's own i.e. "everyone" "knows" that they deal with with kidnappers & pay big ransoms...) - who is likely to tell the unvarnished truth in these circumstances?

Incidentally, it was Wesley S who first mentioned "tank", but whether it was or not is rather beside the point. Wesley also stated "400 rounds" which clearly implies a machine gun. Neither a main cannon, nor a single barrel 20mm can achieve this rate of fire. Whether it was a tank or Humvee, both mount HMGs. I'm suspicious of the alleged photo of the car, though. It looks remarkably undamaged - even the windscreen looks intact. Does anyone know by who, & how, this photo was released?