Toby Harnden, chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph argues in the Spectator that the Iraqi ‘insurgents’ are starting to lose it.
A close look at insurgent attacks since the Fallujah offensive in November reveals that while the numbers might have increased, they are becoming less effective. The nine election-day suicide bombers averaged about three victims each…
…Such is the desperation — and decadence — of the insurgents that they have begun using mentally retarded youths for suicide bombings. This is a way of preserving brighter recruits, but the downside is that they get caught, blow themselves up prematurely or kill the wrong people.
The casual use of those considered ‘expendable’ by the leadership to place bombs does seem to show an increasing desperation amongst those who wish to halt the development of democracy.
It also reminded me of the leering German neo-Nazis, described in Ray Hill’s 1980’s book The Other Face of Terror (also a film) when he was working undercover as an anti-fascist mole.
The commanders laughingly confessed to Hill that in order to destroy evidence of their involvement in the 1980 Octoberfest bombing in Munich they instructed the bomber – one of their own but perhaps not leadership material – that he was to place the bomb at 3 o’clock; that it was primed to go off at half past three; and that he’d have time to escape if he did as he was told.
The bomb was in fact primed for three o’clock and the bomber ended up as one of the 14 dead when it ripped through the festival shortening innocent lives and maiming hundreds more revellers.
Plus ca Change.