Al Qaeda man throws pin, holds grenade

[Lefty Scaevola]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/yemen_al_qaida

Well, there is a limit to what training and motivation can do for stupid persons.
"When you earnestly believe you can compesate fo a lack of skill by doubling your efforst, There's no end to what you cna't do"

Diven the limatations of the large majority of the marterial they have to draw from, impressionable, callow, hotheads, how effective a force can they put together. Any one hwo has had experience organizing and traing a group of young undecuated folks please illuminate this issue. How good can they expect to get?

 

[Juize]

As we all know, the bads must be also idiots.

How else they could be bad?


Oh geez, I'll shut up before someone says that I have said that US deserved that Al qaeda man killed himself
and I'll be banned.

 

[Jimcat]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
Diven the limatations of the large majority of the marterial they have to draw from, impressionable, callow, hotheads, how effective a force can they put together. Any one hwo has had experience organizing and traing a group of young undecuated folks please illuminate this issue. How good can they expect to get?

Don't confuse lack of training with lack of skill or lack of intelligence. Some of those impressionable, callow hotheads might be diamonds in the rough. Of course, that assumes that al-Qaeda (or whatever group is doing the recruiting) has competent teachers and sufficient time to train people properly.

The Japanese, and to a lesser extent the Germans, found this out towards the end of WWII. It's not that the Japanese military wanted suicide pilots, or that the kamikaze pilots wanted to kill themselves. But training a pilot takes months to years, and they just didn't have that time. So they just taught the boys to take off and point their plane towards a target (hm, sounds familiar). They were doing the best they could with the resources they had. Nazi Germany didn't go for suicide pilots, but towards the end, they would teach their pilots to take off and maneuver, but not to land. Once the pilots had expended all their ammunition, they would eject from the plane and parachute to safety. It was easier to replace a plane than to replace a pilot.

Desperation tactics... but the sad thing is, sometimes they work.

 

[mrog]

I'm sure (or at least I hope) that the professionals whose job it is to deal with these criminals do not underestimate them.

 

[tetley]

If I was in the heat of combat, fighting for my life, I might have made the same stupid mistake. It's amazing the things that go wrong when your hand's shaking like a leaf like that. That's why you have combat training exercises--to get the feel of simple stuff like that down to a habit, so you don't think about it.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by tetley
If I was in the heat of combat, fighting for my life, I might have made the same stupid mistake. It's amazing the things that go wrong when your hand's shaking like a leaf like that. That's why you have combat training exercises--to get the feel of simple stuff like that down to a habit, so you don't think about it.

Exactly. I remember a soldier in Basic Training that flubbed up throwing a grenade, luckly it was a practice grenade but she got her arse laid into. This was probably the situation with this guy although he may have meant to take his life.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

This ALL depends on correct reporting...the guy may have deliberately wanted to blow himself up to avoid capture and this chap has embelished it and taken a different angle.

I have seen this same story reported differently from this link...the bbc newslink make it clear that it is the police that say he tried to throw it at them...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1819000/1819380.stm

BUT at the same time he was cornered and I do doubt the value of a hand grenade in such a situation for escape...quite likely he detonated himself to avoid capture by the pleasant Yemeni security forces.