A Balanced Picture

The number of significant deaths in Afghanistan has risen to a hundred and fifty, according to the Ministry for War and the Colonies. A number with a zero on the end, of course, always has that little extra bit of significance, so the Ministry has decided to temper grief with joy by telling the Press Association an anecdote about a Royal Marine using a shoulder-launched missile to foil a roadside bomb plot and kill three "enemies of Afghanistan". According to the spokesbeing for the friends of Afghanistan, devices such as the one the nasties were trying to plant are "totally indiscriminate", quite unlike your average cluster bomb; "and it is highly likely that if it had detonated, it would have been innocent people from Sangin who would have been killed or injured", despite the fact that the locals were "avoiding the area".