WE ONLY HAVE TO GET LUCKY ONCE:

U.S. forces kill mosque bomber in Iraq (Reuters, Aug 4, 2007)

U.S. forces said on Saturday they had killed the al Qaeda leader who masterminded the bombing that destroyed the twin minarets of the revered Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra in June.

An earlier bombing of the mosque in February 2006 triggered a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs that has killed tens of thousands.

The U.S. military said Haitham al-Badri, the al Qaeda leader in Salahuddin province, was killed by U.S. forces on August 2.

Nato airstrike kills senior Taliban leaders (Tom Coghlan, 04/08/2007, Daily Telegraph)

Nato is reported to have killed at least two senior Taliban leaders in an airstrike north of Helmand as they were watching a public execution.

The bombing took place in the northern district of Baghran on Thursday, a district entirely controlled by the Taliban.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 4, 2007 3:58 PM