Afghanistan’s insurgents are declaring victory. “We have already registered our protest by attacking a U.S. base where British Prince Harry was staying,” says Mullah Salih Khan, a Taliban commander in Helmand province. The insurgents have repeatedly claimed that last week’s assault on Camp Bastion, the joint U.S.-British military facility in Helmand province where Prince Harry is stationed as a helicopter pilot, was a direct response to the discovery of the trailer on the Internet. Non-Taliban analysts have dismissed the claim, saying the insurgents could not possibly have planned and trained for such a complex raid on such short notice…
The truth is that Taliban leaders could scarcely be happier about the film. After all, it’s the best recruiting tool they’ve had in months. A former cabinet minister from Afghanistan’s toppled Taliban government recalls other cultural offenses that fanned anti-U.S. anger among Afghans: the mistaken burning of Qurans in a dump at the Baghram detention facility, the Internet video showing U.S. troops urinating on the corpses of dead insurgents. “We have seen in the past how such incidents raise Taliban recruitments,” he says. “Certainly this one will do so again.”
