Terrorist Bombmaker Blows Up the Class

In the “hoist with his own petard” category we find the Iraqi terrorist bomb-making instructor who blew up his class.

The New York Post reported:

Would-be suicide bombers got to meet their 72 virgins a bit early on Monday when their clumsy al Qaeda tutor accidentally detonated an explosives-packed car during a how-to-bomb lesson at their Iraqi terror camp.

The blast at a training camp disguised in an orchard in a Sunni area north of Baghdad killed the instructor and 20 of his students, Iraqi officials said.

Security forces who rushed to the scene because of the deafening explosion arrested 22 men who tried to flee, several of them wounded by the blast.

And then:

A police officer said the camp members were attending a lesson on making car bombs and explosive belts when a glitch set off one of the devices.

Even more embarrassing was that the group was filming a propaganda video of how to conduct car bomb attacks when the explosives detonated, according to Majeed Ali, the head of the Sahwa militia force in the city.

The instructor was described as a master recruiter and bomb maker for ISIS.

The New York Times finds the humor in the story:

In what represented a cautionary tale for terrorist teachers, and a cause of dark humor for ordinary Iraqis, a commander at a secluded terrorist training camp north of Baghdad unwittingly used a belt packed with explosives while conducting a demonstration early Monday for a group of militants, killing himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, army and police officials said.

Iraqi citizens have long been accustomed to daily attacks on public markets, mosques, funerals and even children’s soccer games, so they saw the story of the fumbling militants as a dark — and delicious — kind of poetic justice, especially coming amid a protracted surge of violence led by the terrorist group, including a rise in suicide bombings.

Will Saletan asks whether he is a bad person for taking satisfaction in this?

The answer: No.

Just think of all the lives he saved.