10 Taliban Kill Themselves in Botched Bombing

James Joyner · Saturday, July 5, 2008 · 1 Comment

Seeing the headline “10 Taliban killed while planting bomb” on YahooNews, I was expecting a feel-good story. Alas, not so much.

In addition to the fact that this occurred on the same day that parliament member and former military commander Habibullah Jan was murdered, the fitting demise of the would-be bombers is mitigated considerably by this:

The fact one bomb killed so many men appears to reflect the increased size of explosives Taliban fighters have been using in recent months. The bigger bombs — long used in Iraq but a fairly new phenomenon in Afghanistan — are shredding through heavily armored U.S. and NATO vehicles and killing multiple soldiers in one attack.

Lovely.

FILED UNDER: James Joyner, World Politics, Afghanistan, Iraq, NATO, Taliban

About James Joyner
James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. Follow James on Twitter.

Comments

Bithead says:

Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 11:18

Heh.
So, instead of reporting it as a bunch of screw-ups, the press spins it that the whole thing is lost and we’d better set a timetable and withdraw.

Is there any doubt whose pocket these people are in?

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