When First Lt. James Brown and his team of bomb investigators arrived at the shredded remains of the truck, the grim significance of the attack became clear. One of the dead was a hard-charging commander who, more than any officer in this restive district of Logar Province, had helped fight a shadowy network of local bomb makers. "If he wasn't trying so hard, if he was taking bribes, taking naps, he'd be alive right now," Lieutenant Brown said of the commander, Gul Alam. This is the war in Afghanistan today, where death is measured less by the accuracy of bullets than by the cleverness of bombs. And though the Afghan insurgency's improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, are less powerful or complex than those used in Iraq, they are becoming more common and more sophisticated with each week, American military officers say.
When First Lt. James Brown and his team of bomb investigators arrived at the shredded remains of the truck, the grim significance of the attack became clear. One of the dead was a hard-charging commander who, more than any officer in this restive district of Logar Province, had helped fight a shadowy network of local bomb makers.
"If he wasn't trying so hard, if he was taking bribes, taking naps, he'd be alive right now," Lieutenant Brown said of the commander, Gul Alam.
This is the war in Afghanistan today, where death is measured less by the accuracy of bullets than by the cleverness of bombs. And though the Afghan insurgency's improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, are less powerful or complex than those used in Iraq, they are becoming more common and more sophisticated with each week, American military officers say.
